This semester, the primary mechanical focus has been on achieving custom buoyancy, allowing for a sleek case design, improved hydrodynamics, and a more polished overall look for Crush. While machining the buoyancy blocks, we unfortunately experienced an incident that resulted in a part that was less than ideal. Although it was manually cut and sanded …
These past weeks the Mechanical team has been hard at work with a multitude of projects including installing the thruster cable injector, changing propeller configurations, new gripper design, and a few others. Thrusters on Crush All eight thrusters have been mounted on Crush with new nylon L-brackets and the correct propeller configuration to ensure all …
This past week, steady progress has been made on several projects along with the completion of others. Major advances on adding additional thrusters for Crush, marker dropper, new Oogway capsule mounts, case, buoyancy measurements, and a new battery capsule design for both Oogway and Crush Thrusters on Crush The parts to add additional thrusters came …
This past week marked a major milestone for our mechanical team — we successfully onboarded all our new members! Each student was matched with a project aligned with their interests and skillsets, ensuring everyone gets hands-on experience from the start. The major projects currently in development include: capsule cooling, additional thrusters for Crush, a marker …
A new robot requires new flotation blocks, but why should we slap rectangular chunks or messily cut pieces to such a beautiful new robot? Therefore, before deployment, we set out to properly CNC out some flotation blocks. Using Solidworks and Vcarve, a tool path was created with the flotation blocks approximated as wood with different …
Progress on Crush Mounts L brackets: Raine designed custom L brackets to hold most major components of the minibar together. This consists of two types of L brackets for the backplate and smaller more robust L brackets for general mounting. Capsule mounts: The capsule mounts to the backplate of the robot, and SLS-printed nylon guides …
Read more “Building the Backbone: Designing Mounts for Crush”
Progress on Crush Frame We’ve been hard at work to get Crush ready for testing and electronics integration! Some major components of Crush are the two side plates enclosing the two capsules and the back plate, which the capsules mount to. Strewn across the two side plates are mounting bars with a pattern of hexagons …
Torpedos We have been iterating on torpedo designs to determine the best design to move forward with. Through plenty of research, we settled on an ASA 3D-printed torpedo after testing other designs using PLA and performing CFD. To secure the torpedo for launch, we chose a twist lock method that would lock the torpedoes in …
Minibot This week, we reached a major milestone by completing the chassis for our minibot, Crush. With the structure in place, we’re now shifting focus to refining smaller but essential details. We are waiting on one more part to arrive but have been able to substitute a 3D print in the meantime. Danny has been …
Minibot Ethan and Lily have been working on mounts for the mini bot electrical stack. They’re making steady progress in incorporating all our new components, such as the Jetson Nano. Danny is focused on building the camera housing, ensuring it is robust and functional for the team’s needs. His work is a crucial part of …
The mechanical team has been hard at work this semester, making strides on both our main bot and minibot projects! Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to. Oogway Updates Materials Ordered for Self-Propelled Torpedoes We’re excited to announce that we’ve ordered all the materials needed to prototype our first self-propelled torpedoes. After …
The mechanical team is excited to hit the ground running this year with a fun onboarding project and plenty of tasks for returning and new members. This semester, we tasked new members with building a paper bridge that could hold as much weight as possible. We had so many interesting and creative designs! For the …
During testing, we noticed that replacing the markers took quite a long time, as the front plate needed to be completely unscrewed and then screwed back in. To resolve this, we cut two large holes into the top of the marker enclosure for dropping the markers in. As we plan to do a barrel roll …
The torpedo launcher we’ve been constructing features two cylindrical tubes containing torpedoes that compress a spring and are released by a trigger mechanism. Our design process has led to various alterations, particularly to the barrel, torpedo, and trigger mechanism. For the barrel, we added holes to facilitate water escape making it easier for the torpedo …
This mount is adapted from the battery mount, but because the camera is static, we were able to merge the ring and frame mount like with the forwards-facing camera mount. This attaches to the bottom of the battery mount and locks both prints in place.
Our new system was designed to be just as flexible as our old system while retaining the stability and reliability of the capsule system. This system is composed of two rods mounted on the system and uses the same foam blocks as the original design. This system is analogous to adding weights to a barbell: …
Marker Enclosure For our marker enclosure, we chose a crescent-shaped design. This allows us to fit two markers, one in each half of the enclosure. Moreover, the crescent shape will allow the markers to naturally roll towards the center, where there is an opening for the marker to drop through. The markers are then kept …
The main point of failure here was also the interface between the ring and the frame mount. However, because we require the rings to be able to rotate when replacing the battery, we were unable to mold these into a single mount. However, we were still able to make several improvements. First, we made the …
Read more “Battery & Camera Mounts – Improved Battery Mount”
During testing, we noticed that the capsule system is much bigger and cumbersome than our old design. The weight from the acrylic and metal mounting brackets was many times that of our simple 3D-printed mount. This also means that there are fewer places it can be mounted on the robot and it is overall less …
Read more “Adjustable Buoyancy – Capsule-Based System Update”
To improve the adjustable buoyancy system, we decided on a new design with an old, damaged camera capsule we had on hand. We want to create a piston-like system that allows the volume of air inside the capsule to be adjusted when needed. This principle is similar to a syringe: when the piston retracts, the …
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