Meeting 2

11/15/14

Team Meeting @ University Crossing 1PM

All members were in attendance.

Team Name: R2 Doweknow?

During the meeting we further discussed our project ideas.  We've decided that we wish to program our Arduino to physically draw on a piece of paper.  As of now, we understand that at least one or more stepper motors will be required, most likely potentiometer(s), and lever arms to hold a drawing utensil will need to be created by printing and cutting or by utilizing make-shift parts. After searching the web, we came across these two websites that relate to our project idea:

1.   http://makezine.com/projects/circle-a-sketch/

2.   https://www.marginallyclever.com/blog/2013/08/how-to-build-an-2-axis-arduino-cnc-gcode-interpreter/

Things to do next week:

-start to physically experiment with the arduino in context to our research and project idea

-ask Prof. Sullivan about stepper motor availability

-

Things to clarify:

-project specifications

-due date

Next meeting: Wednesday November 19, 2014 @ 4PM in Lydon or Ucrossing

Project discussion

After several meeting and did a lot of research. My team ended up choosing Etch a sketch. The purpose of picking it for our project is to control it to draw some shape using stepper motors as well as arduino as controller. The basic set up is that we will place to stepper motors at two side of the etch a sketch and connect them with the knobs by using gears. The arduino board and adafruit motor shield will control these two motors through the codes. We think the toughest part is to do the coding.

Etch a Sketch

Brainstorming

Group members:
Dong Anh Nguyen
Tyler Bussone
Vineeth Madala

In this first meeting, we sat together and discussed many different ideas about what we should do with the Arduino. We came up with a few different ideas like a universal remote, GPS tracker, a crane, etc. The most interesting but simple idea we came up with is to be able to program the Arduino write and/or scribe words and shapes onto a piece of paper or whiteboard.  This function would be useful for people who are paralyzed or have really bad arthritis in which they have lost the ability to write with a pen or pencil.  It could simply be used a the "perfect circle maker" because everyone knows the struggles of drawing a perfect circle.  For this, the Arduino needs to be programmable to draw a perfect circle of a designated radius. This idea requires communication between the Arduino and the parts but also requires movement of some sort whether it be just an arm or an autonomous bot.  For the "perfect circle maker" a stepper motor could be used to convert steps into degrees or radians which would allow the Arduino to draw only fractions of a circle (arc lengths).  In essence the stepper motor is used as a convertor allowing the Arduino to measure angles.