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 …
As the acoustics team continues development this year, the main priority for the hydrophone mount is modularity: the hydrophones may need to be moved around the robot for tests and the mounts may need to be quickly reprinted to accommodate different designs. Therefore, the hydrophone mount uses a two-part design. The first part is the …
Pros Our old design is minimal and compact, allowing it to be easily 3D-printed and assembled quickly. This design allows high adjustability as well: we can add as many buoyancy blocks as we want atop the mount. Moreover, we could easily mount this design on many parts of our robot because it simply wraps around …
The first step to secure the metal plate was to drill four additional holes into our stack plate. These will allow four additional standoffs to be mounted to hold the plate securely onto the capsule. We used a laser-cut jig to line up a hand drill and manually drilled each one. Then, we cut four …
The main point of failure on the front DepthAI camera mount was the interface between the ring and the frame mount. We ended up molding these two together into a single mount for a more structurally sound design.
We have several candidates right now for a permanent solution to our capsule problem: We ended up choosing the metal plate solution for several reasons. First, it was easiest: ordering a metal plate is relatively cheap, and we have experience making similar designs in-house. Moreover, this can be easily prototyped out of cheaper materials like …
The current battery and camera mounts frequently broke during competition, as the 3D printed mounts were put under a large weight continuously. The battery mounts in particular were prone to failure as they would be jostled around when we replaced the battery. In fact, during competition, we had to ask another team to print us …
Read more “Battery & Camera Mounts – Problems with the Old System”
Last year, we used a standard Polycase™ waterproof enclosure to house our electrical stack and keep water out. This capsule came with four brass inserts in the corners to press the capsule into the O-ring. Despite working initially, wear and tear from a year of use eventually degraded the plastic-brass bond, causing the brass inserts …
The Duke Robotics Club makes significant use of 3D printing to design and prototype crucial components for the team’s AUV. The demands of the club are difficult to keep up with, as club members print around the clock in the Co-Lab and the Foundry to stay on schedule with the pool tests. The need for …
As a freshman, I knew I wanted to join a project team where I could learn engineering skills, take on a complicated design challenge, and build something real. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing in the Duke Robotics Club (DRC). The club’s primary focus is designing, building, and programming an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) for …
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