Last thursday, we finished out first model!! We strapped all the wires and RC peices on the top of the base. It was ready for a test. Everyone at NUVU gathered around to watch the testing. Sam drove it full speed, and it was clearly too much power. The car span a 180 degree turn, and was out of control. Then we noticed that the propellers polarization was incorrect, so we swiched them around. Now, the car goes extremely fast and is directed forward. The turning wasnt secured enough, so we worried it would fall off. It didnt, but it had a wider turning radius than we anticipated. It was really fun to work with, and showed us how fast it went!!! The next day, we reviewed the test and chose that we wanted to build a better model. This model will have 4 wheels for support, a better turning system, a braking system, and one RC propeller. We have designed a model on rhino, and have tested how we would mount the propeller in the middle of the body. Right now we are waiting on our RC wheels to come in. We just designed the turning system out of scrap wood, and will design the real model when the wheels come. The brakes are similar to the ones on a bike. We will have two brake blocks that will squeeze the wheel to stop. But again, we need the wheels to actually build it. 

There are a few reasons that we decided to make the robot have five legs. One of the main reasons was that the four legged robot was having trouble balancing and we figured that if we added another leg it could be the difference. Another reason is we were afraid that some people might think that it looks like a swastika with four legs.

      Yesterday, We chose to branch off from our Minibot to work on another project. We did this because we lacked materials, and it will take a few days to come. We had many ideas, until we thought of building an RC plane. This project wasn't quite enough, so we chose to mix our two ideas. We got the idea to build a propeller powered car. 

         At first, we wanted to build it out of foam, but we found foam was too light and couldnt support the propellers. Then we just chose to build it with wood. With our idea in mind, we designed it on Rhino. The car resembles a space ship. We cut two lines of triangles down the middle, which surprising reduces the weight by about 40%. The propellers will be mounted on the rear, where the fins go out. We also needed to raise the RC propellers, since they were about 7 inches long. We designed inserts on the main body, and made a rectangular platform to stand up. We put extrusions on the sides to stop it from going through, and holes for the RC motor to attach. We also added triangles to support the platform.

           After the design, we printed all the parts. We assembled with wood glue, supports/interlocking parts, and screws. The car will be mounted on three RC plane wheels, One in the front, which will be controlled by a servo, and two for the rear wings. These wheels are easy to work with, and extremely lightweight. We are attaching the wheels with the wire, clamps and glue. The RC motors have 5000 hp each. We are mounting 7 inch propellers that should easily propel this car forward. We will mount these motors to the wood platforms on the wings. We will attach them with the servo screws, which fit perfectly. 

      After we assemble this completely, we will program the servo and motors. We will also have to set up a MAX file to let us control the car by remote. Then we can test it!!!

Issues: 

- Too much friction between legs and body that is preventing the legs from moving smoothly

- We didn't fit the Arduino and wires inside the body. Nice wiring is required

- We are not sure if the motors are strong enough

- Both the Arduino and servos have to be connected to same battery. 

Today we spent most of the day experimenting with the code for the servos, which control the legs. We are working on two different approaches for making the robot walk. There are five legs in total, like star. The first approach involves keeping the support leg — the alternate one on the ground — mostly straight and would look something like a human cartwheel. The second approach would allow the support leg to bend, which would be an easier solution for movement, but we prefer the elegance of the first.

While experimenting with the movement of the legs, we encountered a few problems. First, the robot legs were not heavy enough to flip the robot over into the next position. First, we tried laser cutting pieces of wood to add weight to the ends of the legs, but this was not sufficient. Eventually, we decided to go back to the 3D model and increase the length of the legs in SolidWorks to give them more weight. We are excited to try out the robot tomorrow!

(I do not have any pictures of the code or model because we did it on the IMac.)

The new servos came! The special thing about these servos is that they have metal gears. This means that the gears will not grind down. Saeed made a few prototypes of the new servo holder. Now I am making the prototypes even better. After I finish with the servo holder I will have to make a new servo hole because the new servo's pattern is larger and it has 25 notches instead of 15.