• May Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 05/31/2018 at 13:30 • 0 comments

    This month I worked on my final research paper, presentation, and poster (This was for a senior research project). I also kept fiddling around with the machine and tested its extents. It can't shoot balls ay faster than 1 every 2 or so seconds because the wheel needs time to rev back up in between. It needs to start in the up position because otherwise if there is already a ball in the barrel the shooter wheel wont be able to start spinning. There are a few more pieces that I think I will work on over the summer to make it a bit more robust. I need to print a case for the electronics, find a way to really secure down connections and 3D print some new sprockets. Laser cut sprockets (plywood) are very weak and the D shaped centers are starting to turn into circles. I'm considering this project complete to the point where I would be comfortable using it without any modifications, but since I like to tinker, this project is likely far from done.

  • April Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 05/02/2018 at 16:32 • 0 comments

    This month I was able to finish my project!, all thats left is just loading up different practicing routines. The spin is kinda crazy and unfortunatley there is no option to not have spin (due to me only using one shooting wheel, however for my purposes I'm alright with that since it still gives me some good practice. There were quite a lot of wiring problems during this month that I resolved by making sure everything was soldered together. I also need to 3D print a case for my electronics to it looks a bit neater but other than that its looking pretty good.

  • March Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 04/01/2018 at 15:24 • 0 comments

    This month I focused on the physical assembly of the machine. The Pan and Tilt sub assemblies are complete. The chain lengths worked out quite well so I wont have to re-cut any of the pieces. The steppers currently have enough torque to turn everything, but the shooter is not yet mounted and the ball mixer has not yet been tested with balls. So we have yet to see if the steppers will be enough in the end. I found some weaknesses in the design when it came to the Pan mechanism, however when i secured the axle in a second location the mechanism became very rigid. Next month I plan on finishing the construction in the machine and testing shooting balls to see their accuracy. I will also be casting a urethane shooter wheel and see how well it grips the balls.

  • February Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 03/04/2018 at 16:40 • 0 comments

    As I planned, this month I was able to finish up all the code for controlling the steppers and DC motors through an LCD panel control on one arduino, wired to the other arduino which had the stepper motors attached. The pairing of the arduinos worked, the power supply now can stay on by itself since I fulfilled the minimum wattage requirement with a power resister, the speed controller built into my arduino shield worked, and I have been starting to work on the physical aspects of the design. In March I plan to determine whether the stepper motors I'm using have enough torque as is, or if I will need to gear them up by using a different sprocket ratio.

  • January Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 02/05/2018 at 01:06 • 0 comments

    I received my power supply, motor speed controllers, and the CNC shield. I have gotten all of these to work properly and am starting to work on linking the two arduinos together. This is because there are not enough input and output pins on the CNC shield available that I can work with. I plan to have a LCD panel display interface where I can choose different settings similarly to a 3D printer interface. I have another shield for my arduino that has built in motor speed controllers so I may decide to use that rather than the new motor speed controler since it uses up less pins and is just as easy to program. My plan for February is to finish up the code for the LCD interface and be able to control all the dc and stepper motors  from that interface. Then I will transition to moving on with the mechanical design and assembling the robot.

  • November Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 12/10/2017 at 18:44 • 0 comments

    For this month I was working on finalizing all the materials that I needed to purchase. I decided on the power supply and the microcontroller that I would be using. I also decided on the tubing I will be using to transport the balls from the bucket to the shooter. This was challenging as I was unable to find a relativley cheap but highly flexible tube that was just large enough to fit a ping pong ball through. I will be using a wider diameter (~2 inches) and snipping down the length of the tube then zip tying it to be just the right size. I also ordered the chains for the mechanism and kept editing the CAD file to make some further adjustments for rigidity.

  • October Update

    Kieran Beaumont • 11/06/2017 at 13:58 • 0 comments

    I have designed the entire robot in CAD and have laser cut out all of the pieces. I am currently working on 3D printing the brackets for everything.  I have researched different DC motors for shooting, speed controllers for the motor, stepper drivers for the stepper motors, and power supplies that are relatively small scale. I decided on which ones to buy and will be ordering everything shortly, along with some chain from AndyMark.