Updates
- 4/23/2021: Updated website to include final results and documentation
- 3/12/2021: Updated website to include system description, progress update, and testing section
- 1/29/2021: Updated Website to include Update section, Schedule & Progress section, and updated the project information
Our Team
Quincy Ahuja
Project Manager and Lead Hardware Designer
Good with electroncis design, building, and has a lot of experience programming in C, C++, Basic, JavaScript, and Matlab
Contact email: qka2@nau.edu
Abdulrahman Alzimam
Documentation Manager and Software Developer
Good team player, with experience in electronic hardware and software design
Contact email: asa635@nau.edu
Siqi Peng
Lead Software Developer
Experience in electronic hardware desing, web design, and programming in several languages
Contact email: sp2286@nau.edu
About Our Project
With new innovations in technology, once manual things are being converted into automated products. This project too takes something that is done manually and automates it. We are building a robot that remotely writes and erases on a whiteboard. It also scans and saves whatever is on the whiteboard so it can be viewed later. All of this is done on a browser over the internet, so it is accessable to nearly any device with a web browser. Images can be uploaded for the robot to draw, or the user can hand draw what ever they want directly into the browser to be written by the robot. The robot will be adjustable to fit most whiteboard sizes. This device would be useful to teachers who like to put notes on the whiteboard for themself or the students to view whenever. It can also erase any desired portions of the whiteboard to have ready before class or make space for more drawings. All of this can be done without the teacher having physical access to the whiteboard. When the robot is not in use, it moves out of the way of the whiteboard so the whiteboard can be easily locally.System Overview
Our desing utilzes a polar plotter controlled wirelessly via Raspbbery Pi. The polar plotter is comprised
of two stepper motors, a motor control board (RAMPS 1.4 connected to the Raspberry Pi), and a gondola suspended
between the motors. The gondola contains the marker holder, eraser, and a servo to control placement against
the whiteboard. We also implemented a camera scanner, which is a webcam mounted on the end of a servo controled
arm mounted above the whiteboard. The robot is controled from our robot control website. Users may draw or upload
images, erase images, and view and save the whiteboard via the camera scanner from the website.
Utilzed Parts
This is a list of parts we have used to create our robot- Raspberry Pi 4
- GT2 Timing Belt
- NEMA 17 Stepper Motors
- USB 1080p Webcam
- MG995 Servos
- 5V Electromagnet
- Whitebaord Markers
- Whiteboard Erasers
- RAMPS 1.4 Motor Control Board mounted on Arduino MEGA
- 12V 30A AC to DC Power Supply
- Makelangelo Polar Plotting Software
Requirements Presentation
Schedule & Progress
This Gantt chart shows our projected schedule and current progress of our project. There are three main tasks indicated by different colors. The green tasks are the all of the hardware subsystems that must be completed. The blue tasks are all of the robot control website tasks. The red tasks are all of the Raspberry Pi tasks thatmust be finished. These tasks are all separated into their own colors because they must be completed mostly independent of eachother. The black bar shows the progress of each task. We are currently projectet to finish the construction and start testing by March 3rd, 2021.
Update: 3/12/2021:
Keeping our Gantt chart goals has been more challenging than anticipated, as we have not been able to keep up. This has been due to many different reasons, from technical problems taking much more time than anticipated, to waiting on parts to be delivered. However, due to the nature of our project, even though we fell behind our goals, we have been able to make progress in other parts ahead of schedule. So while we are still behind, catching up to where we need to be will be easier.
Update: 4/23/2021:
As stated above, the different types of subsystems are split into three different colors with mostly independent completion paths. However as our project progressed and our design evlolved, our Gantt chart became less relevant. We essentially combined the blue and red sections, as we ended up implementing all of the control website functions on the Raspberry Pi directly, and so did not need to automate the Pi. The Gantt chart provided a solid refernce for us at the beginning, but it would not to be redone to reflect the actual development progress of our project. While this was not planned, we were also not surprised, as we were constantly updating our design as we built the robot.
Example Testing Procedure
Our testing includes testing the accuracy of the polar plotter. The plotter must draw all lines within 1 cm of error per requirement 1.2.1. In order to test this, a test pattern as shown below (not to scale) will be sent to the robot. The pattern is 4 3-cm squares 5 cm apart (measured from the edges). The robot will draw the image, and then the squares will be measured to see if they are drawn with the expected accuracy.