• I.R.A. Update

    Kendus Tisdale-Jeffries • 08/25/2021 at 00:19 • 0 comments

    Hello, it has been a minute since I have done anything with IRA. I did a few small tests but did a poor job documenting what I did.  Soon after I got busy again with college and other things.  I graduated this April with my mechanical engineering degree and moved down to Florida in July for a job offer that I received.

    I'm slowly settling in and getting used to my work schedule as well as general adult stuff.  But now I am getting ready to jump into personal projects again starting with IRA.  I was inspired by the Supplyframe DesignLab Hackaday prize and their 4th challenge "Redefine Robots".  I only found out about it a few days before entry started on the 23rd so I'm not sure if I will be able to finish anything significant in time before entry closes.  But it's a fun project that I was planning anyway and it's a good excuse to hop back on it.

    With the time that has passed and a fresh brainstorming session my ideas for IRA's look has changed quite a bit.  The functionality as a robotic companion will be pretty much the same but any functions outside of that are still undecided as I type up this log but I hope to have that figured out soon whether that be performing actual tasks or just being a friend that you can carry around.

    Outside of that there are a few challenges that I will be dealing with that may slow down development.  Money for components is less of a problem than it was before now that I actually have a job.  I am still using my laptop from college which could just barely keep up with my school work and projects and it is basically on it's last legs right now.  This makes using cad programs and other software much more painful and slow.  I was hoping to have ordered parts to build a pc by now but the situation with the inflated prices of some parts and other parts quickly going out of stock makes it a bit more challenging.  For now I will work with what I have but I hope to change that soon.  I will do my best to document anything I do and keep updates for anyone who is interested.  

    For now I can at least share my brainstorming notes and scribbles.  There isn't much solid information like dimensions or hardware but more thoughts about the overall concept.  Hopefully they will be readable. I will be making a neater version of these notes as well as more info about the new concept.  While brainstorming I was inspired by a lot of different shapes and forms and creatures.  In this case it was a mix of fictional carnivorous plants, pyramids, and those paper fortune tellers I would make as a kid.  I also wanted her to have more of a physical presence and character so that she isn't just an Alexa or something so I want to implement more moving parts and even an eye mechanism to help with emoting.  For the purpose of  the contest, I will be making a fresh project page for the new IRA very soon.  If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to ask.

    The very first page where I scribbled down some of my initial thoughts and goals for this project

    On this page I was thinking about IRA possibly being able to pick up and manipulate things with her petals and doubling as some sort of robotic arm. This was also where I first started contemplating a mechanical eye.

    I briefly got distracted by the idea of a clam robot that may become a later project, but then I sarted thinking about how I wanted to actuate the petals.

    More thoughts on petal actuation and I even started thinking of over complicated linkage mechanisms. My main concern was the range of motion.

    Afterwards I started thinking of the eye mechanism and based it off of several youtube videos and designs that I have seen. I also thought about putting IRA on a continuum arm.

    Just a few more notes on the eye mechanism