Applications and Implications
What will it do?
My final project will be a moving handrail. It has two "feet" and a rail in between joining them flexible through rotating axis. First goal is to be able to move one feet to a certain position within an circular distance, after that the second foot has to be moved. It can pull things like bags to another place. But sticking to something like a wall or ground or ceiling one can use it as an handrail. In further developedment it should start to assamble with other handrails to get a building structure.
Who's done that before?
- Climbing robots from robotics lab uc3m . They build four joint and five joint robots walking on different materials stell, concrete, wood...
- Truss climbing window shade MIT truss climber has two rotationjoints and is rotating along z-axis rotating foreward. This is quiete near what I´m planning to do.
- Another wall climbing robot from Institute of Technology in Calcuta is turning it's feet over head. It climbs with vakuum cup.
- Biologically inspired truss-climbing robot with several joints.
- Truss-building and and climbing robot.
What materials and components will be required?
Please see below the part and price list. All prices are with no guarantee as the price are very flexible on the market. Most of the electronic components I've bought at Reichelt online shop. For my shell I bought the Foil at Modulor shop. The servos and the air-screws differ amazingly in price if you search for them. So can get them quiete reasonable but also too expensive.What parts and systems will be made?
- The feet will be designed and 3d printed.
- The handrail will be designed and printed or lasercut.
- The boards will be designed and milled.
What tasks need to be completed and what questions have to be answered?
The stiffness of a handrail and the requirement of a kind of balance has to be solved. There are four possibilities: vacuum for equal surface, magnets for ferrous materials, changing weight from one side to another or some kind of brackets. As it is allways possible to find a comlicate solution I wanted to find a simple and easy to realize design structure. At the moment I am developing a combination with a strong propeller and servo motor. The outstanding is the left and right hand rotation of the propeller for pushing or sucking. After trying out this rotation movement I will decide if it is a good idea to move the moving part of the handrail up in the z direction or keep it in on xy level. The weight has to be calculated
What is the scedule?
- Designing the foot structure until 31st of May
- Printing out the structure.
- Making some tests with rotation on xy plane in combination with switching rotation movement and sensors until 3rd of June.
- Designing new boards until 6th of June.
- Milling the boards.
- Designing handrail and holdings for the boards until 8th of June.
- Producing them and assembling the parts.
- Programming the boards until 14th of Juneand testing if it works.
How will it be evaluated?
After finishing my prototype. I will try to answer several questions:
- Does the handrail walk?
- Does it walk smoothly?
- Is it able to walk a ramp up?
- Is it able to climb a wall?
- Is the handrail easy to build? (amount of parts, assembling procedure)
- Is it easy to repare?(demountable parts e.g.)
- Is it able to pull a bag?
- How strong is it at all?
If some questions have to be negated, then which suggestions or ideas can I get for improvement.