Thu. Mar 4, 2021, 10:30AM to 12:20PM (Zoom)

Today’s class is primarily devoted to hands-on learning.

Warm-up

  1. Brief check-in.
  2. Any questions?

Announcements

  • Picking up sewing machines from A9 on Mar. 8 for use in class on Mar. 9
  • Mar. 9 class period for people brand new to sewing or IDeATe sewing machines.

Assignment 8 Review

Let’s take no more than ten minutes to discuss your progress on Assignment 8.

  1. What features and techniques did you try out?
  2. Did you get stuck trying to figure anything out?
  3. What was the most surprising discovery?

Hobby Servos

We will set up a circuit and code to drive a hobby servo. These are electric motor actuators with position control over a fixed travel range. They can be used to directly actuate tendon lines or in the syringe pump.

We will primarily be following the sample circuit and code on the Hobby Servo Examples page.

Materials:

  • Adafruit Circuit Playground Bluefruit
  • LKY62 Longruner hobby servo
  • 4xAA battery holder
  • four AA batteries (not included in kit)
  • small solderless breadboard
  • several jumper wires (male-male)
  • pair of mini-grabber jumper cables
  • optional: tape to hold down parts while working

An alternative to batteries is the 5V 3A power supply with the barrel jack adapter, only I was unable to locate the barrel jack in my kit.

Overview:

  • Materials and terminology
  • Wire up the circuit
  • Test the servo sweep sample code
  • Discuss tendons and mounting

Syringe Pump

We will partially assemble a prototype syringe pump. This is an experimental device for which we have provided several laser-cut parts. It holds one or two syringes and hobby servos to allow electric control of a pneumatic actuator.

We will primarily be following the guide on the Servo-Driven Syringe Pump page.

Materials:

  • laser-cut base plate
  • two laser-cut pillow blocks
  • one laser-cut locking key (out of two)
  • one 20 mL syringe
  • three small wire ties
  • one LKY62 servo and some of the included hardware
  • paper clips
  • small pliers (included in kit)
  • small screwdriver (not included in kit)

Assignment 9