Machine Design

Introduction:

For this assignment, It was required to work as a team, design a machine (1st week) and Automate it (2nd week).

Our start:

To kick off with the the task, we had a long brainstorming session on what machine we can do. Our team has diverse backgrounds and interests, which actually made the brainstorming session interesting! :D

Several ideas were suggested.. like:

Coffee art machine.
Sand Art Machine, to perform somehting like This.
Drawing Machine, to perform something like This.
Farming Machine.
leather cutting machine (that uses a knife instead of laser, more like the vinyl cutter).

Problem Definition and decision:

We discussed the difficulties of each project and how can we achieve each one as a group project.

Coffe art machine: It was basically going to be a modification of ink jet printer and we didn't find a lot of things to be fabricated which can be achievable.
Sand Art Machine: It would be hard to maintain solid flow of sand particles and can be somehow problematic.
Drawing machine and leather cutting machine: There wouldn't be new things that can be achieved.
Farming Machine: The control of putting single seeds.

To take the decision, we started looking around. We wanted to do the task and do something meaningful in same time.

Meanwhile, Our lab has a wide garden in the backyard that needs continuous care whether seeding to plant or watering, yet nobody, out of busyness, is capable of handling it well. Moreover, people always look for how to water their plants while they are away; causing a real issue if they can't find someone who looks after them.

Our Backyard garden.

So, we decided to go for, Farming Machine.

Meeting

We arranged a Skype meeting to discuss the approach and create a plan to work.

Mahmoud Alaa sketched the idea for the end-effector and Asem shared his screen where he created a cad model concept while we were discussing its mechanism of action which helped better visualize the idea for other team members and helped point out problems and points of improvements.

Mohammad Abu-ElHaggag shared a project made by another student which he found while searching for farming projects in Fab Academy archive. It demonstrated a mechanism for watering plants vertically.

Asem showed the group some mechanisms to demonstrate some options.

We then had a final discussion about the end-effector and sketched the idea on paint as we we were discussing it.

Then ended the meeting by spreading some love vibes ;)

The group is then divided into two teams:

Mechanism Design Team:
- 1. Asem Shabayek (Leader)
- 2. Mohammad Abu-ElHaggag
- 3. Mrehan Elshehawy
End-effector Design Team:
- 1. Mahmoud Alaa (Leader)
- 2. May El-Dardiry
- 3. Seif Abdelrhman

Design Requirements:

Following the simple steps to design an Engineering project (in picture below), we tried to set the requirements for our machine. We came up with few for the prototype:

small size machine: about 50cm x 50cm.
Only X and Y axis movement(For simplicity in Control).
Integrates two end effectors in one (Watering and seeding).
Acceptable accuracy in watering (the water can be in a circly of 2 cm diameter around the seed).

Design Steps.

Machine Modules:

For the machine, we divided the work between 5 main modules and assigned sub-teams to work on each module; These Modules are:

1. Chasé and machine base design.

2. End Effectors design.

3. Electronics and Programming (in the machine design week).

4. Fabrication, Assembly and testing (Done by the whole group).

5. Documentation and team follow up.

I. Chasé and base design:

The mechanism team met and discussed the mechanisms discussed before and sketched out the proposed mechanism to be designed

The tasks were divided, Mohammed Abu-Elhaggag designed the carriage piece that will be responsible to hold the X-axis and end-effector.

Mrehan designed the housing for radial bearings and shafts

Asem Assembled the parts obtained from Mrehan and Mohammad as STEP files in Solidworks and designed the housing for the machine

Parts where then cut and assembled

II. End Effectors design:

So we "the end effector team" started to disscuss the end effector design with my team we needed to design an end effector that drops the seeds and waters them.

So, we came up with this idea: A cone that contains the seeds and with water ring outside of it and a linear actuator inside of it that works as a door and also pushes the seeds inside the soil

so i "Mahmoud" started to design the cone and the housing, Mai started to design the water ring and Seif started to design the linear actuator.

i used fusion360 to design the cone, it consists of 50mm cylinder and a cone with 10mm nozzle

Then i started to design the holder which is going to hold the endeffector to the x axis

For the watering End Effector, May used Fusion 360 as well. The structure was simple. It's a hollow ring with hole at the bottom to allow the water to gow through it and then water the seed.

For the water hose, we used a ready made design from thingiverse (For standarization), you can find it here. Yet, the connection between the 2 parts is yet to be made.