Assignment – 60-223 Work

Partner assignments for Project 1: Surprise

Robert Zacharias — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 16:00:32 +0000

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Example: Bluetooth Padlock

sgraff@andrew.cmu.edu — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:35:24 +0000

This project is a bluetooth padlock that can be opened with both your phone and smart watch. It’s an interesting project both from the electronics as well as the different machining operations necessary to make the casing and lock. The ability to not have to deal with a key or a code to punch in really makes it a worthwhile product.

Example: Wireless Robotic Hand

mskubala@andrew.cmu.edu — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 22:10:38 +0000

This person created a pulley-actuated hand that is controlled wirelessly via a glove worn by the user. The project uses flex-sensors (which have a building tutorial included) mounted on a glove that a person wears. When a person bends one of their fingers, the signal is processed by an Arduino Uno and then sent to a robotic hand with a nRF24L01. This signals then sent to a reciever which is attached to another Arduino Uno. The second Arduino activates servos that actuate the fingers.

I was particularly interested in the method of converting the physical movement of the person to an analogous movement with the robot. There is much research being done into creating human augmenting robots, but I have never really considered the possibility of having the robot controlled remotely by actual human movements. I wonder if haptic feedback could be added to something like this by looking at resistance of the servos somehow. This could, perhaps, be done by recording the speed or drawn current of the servos. I also believe for any practical uses, a more refined actuation method is necessary: controlling each joint individually. There are a wide range of applications for a similar control method.

You can find the Instructable for the project at:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Make-a-Low-Cost-Robotic-Hand-With-Wireless/

Example: Tide Tank project

Robert Zacharias — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 19:55:01 +0000

A guy in the South Bronx worked with students at a boat-building education nonprofit. He built a thing with them called a “Tide Tank,” which changes the water level of a fish tank to represent the local tide in real time.

I think it’s a neat project because I like the idea of showing the water level using…a water level! It’s a very one-to-one representation of the world.

If I were to make my own version, I’d probably want to use a better valve system—it seemed like the one shown in the video wasn’t reliable enough to keep the water level where it should have been at all times. (Instead, it bounced above and below the set point.)