Today I used one of the prototype chassis to measure the length of each belt. I attached the servos and wheels, and then used string to find the exact length the belts needed to be. I cut the string and measured the length (or circumference, as the belts would be designed as a circle) and...Read More
The casual reader may recall that we recently printed some test belts using the new NinjaFlex (See Aaron’s blog post here). This was our first time printing with the new filament, so we wanted to run some tests to see just how much the belts could take. NinjaFlex SemiFlex is a specially formulated thermoplastic polyurethane...Read More
The S.A.R.T Interface has two new highly requested features! Snapshots The snapshots feature allows the user to take a snapshot of the camera’s view at any point. The screenshot is then instantly downloaded to the connected client thanks to a simple PHP file. Movies The movie feature is slightly different. It runs the Motion command makemovie,...Read More
After exams had concluded, I started working on modifying the current robot design to accommodate the concepts that Jack and Aaron came up with a few weeks ago. The modifications were: Shrink both sides of the robot chassis which reduced the overall length. The length went from 251 to 226mm – the minimum amount of...Read More
Today was the day where I got my hands on to the Ninja Flex that we bought a few weeks ago. As soon as I got it I put it on the Ultimaker and printed the test file Matthew had made for me a little while ago. The only print settings I had to change...Read More
Last Thursday, Aaron, Ryan and I went to Jaycar to purchase some supplies, including heat shrink, switches, DC plugs, XT60 connectors and solder – all important parts in our new power delivery system! After some testing over the next couple of days, we put together these two circuits. The XT60 connects to a LiPo battery and...Read More
While talking to Mr. Crane, he asked how we are going to do the belt on the wheels. I said we could buy a belt and cut it to size and connect the ends – but this is the S.A.R.T, and that would be too easy. While buying more ABS for the Ultimaker, I thought...Read More
After our redesign brainwave, Aaron and I immediately set about modifying our current prototype. Once we have everything in the robot, we can decide just how much length to shave off. Our current estimate is at least 2cm. The first step was to rip out the 3D printed standoffs. Once the NUC has been rotated,...Read More
Aaron and I had a long discussion about the robot design this morning, and we conceptualised a new orientation for the Intel NUC to allow room for the batteries and voltage regulator while still making the robot overall a bit smaller. The current robot may be slightly too long, and half of the I/O is...Read More
A few days ago Mr. Elias and I were having a chat about powering the NUC. He said that we should start looking at how much usable time we can get out of it while running on battery, so I went to JayCar and got two 2.5mm DC power plugs to connect to our voltage dropper....Read More
