Jeremy Lim's contribution to the project

For this project I was responsible for providing the materials for the project such as the base truck, arm and other extra parts that were not included in the final design. I created the first model of the design with cardboard which became the foundation for the dimensions of the truck bed, circular mount and servo mounts. I also created the servo bracket and servo motor on solid works that Paul used to create the final motion analysis. In addition I contributed to the blog, posting some of the weekly updates and helping with the pictures and videos. I also wrote the majority of the paper that summarized the project.

Paul D'Orlando's Contribution to the Project

For this project I put in a lot of time and effort in the designing and development of Mater the Tow Truck. I was involved with trying to figure out how to incorporate a tow truck assembly onto the back of a toy truck. I presented my ideas for how to make the assembly work, which included how it was going to be mounted and how it was going to function and move, and provided initial sketches of the idea. We collaborated on the final choices for the bed mount, the circular mount, and the servo brackets. I was majorly responsible for the creation of the bed mount and the circular mount in Solidworks and submitting all of the parts including the servo brackets for them to be made. I also was responsible for running the motion analysis for the final assembly in Solidworks. I assembled a majority of the parts of the assembly onto the truck and made sure they fit properly. I assisted with the creation of the blog, including making videos, taking pictures, and helping write the blog posts. Additionally, I was involved with making sure deadlines were met. I was also involved in writing the paper that summarized the project.

Chris Mirageas' Contribution to the Project

For this design project, I contributed a huge portion of time into the design and development of Mater the Tow Truck. I was involved in coming up with the initial ideas for choosing to integrate a tow truck arm into a toy truck. Once this was established I also came up with ideas for how to go about making this project come to life, including design of the truck bed cover, circular mount, and placement of all the servo motors. I was solely responsible for all Arduino activities, including writing all of the code, wiring the truck up, neatening the wires, and making sure all the electrical components functioned as intended. I also participated in creating the engineering drawings shown in previous posts on this blog. I also participated in creating the Solidworks models, assembly and motion analysis, and assembly of actual tow truck. I also maintained blog activities, including pictures, posts, creating Youtube videos, and uploading codes through Github, and played a role in making sure project deadlines were met.

Final Project Post

We have successfully completed the building of our tow truck. We just wrapped up the assembly and final testing before the presentation on Friday. We are very excited that our project works as planned with minimal adjustments, and that it picks up and moves small objects into our designated drop bin.

The following are pictures of the final assembly and projects as well as a video of what Mater does.

The final Arduino code for the motion is also posted.

Here is the final Gist: Our final assembly consists of three servo motors, two controlled by potentiometers and one controlled by a push button. The two potentiometers control the rotation of the whole assembly, and the push button controls the winch. The parts we used consisted of two laser cut pieces that we designed and had fabricated for the assembly. These include the truck bed cover, and the circular mount. We also designed two 3D printed servo brackets to hold down the servos that are mounted on the circular mount. We used a 15 hole Lego beam for our tow arm. A string and paper clip was also used to construct the hook attached to the winch. The Arduino board is mounted to the top of the truck. Overall, we feel that this project was a great success. We stuck with our original idea of turning a regular toy truck into a tow truck, and made it a reality. We feel that this project works really well for what we have. It does exactly what it was designed to; allow the user to utilize the remote control to pick up and move small objects easily. The only issue we ran into when building our project, was that the tolerance was off very little on some of the manufactured pieces, but was nothing a little filing could not fix to make it work. If we were to add one more thing, it could be a groove for the winch cable to ride on, but it is not necessary. Overall, the project was a success and we are happy with it.

Week of December 2nd

This week we have received all of our parts that were sent to be fabricated (laser cut and 3-d printed). The final assembly has begun. We have put all the parts together as well as finished all of the programming. All that is left to be done is to wire and mount the breadboard to the servo motors, as well as mounting the breadboards to the truck.

Week of November 25th

This week our group is working on an Arduino program that can control a servo motor with a push button making it rotate clockwise on one click and counterclockwise on two clicks. This will allow the tow hitch move up and down. In addition we have emailed all of our parts for fabrication. The servo bracket is to be 3D printed. The truck bed cover and circular base are to be laser cut.

Week of November 18th Summary

This week, Chris, Paul and, Jeremy met on Tuesday the 19th, Wednesday the 20th, and Thursday the 21st in lab. All of worked on the project 11 hours in total this week. We accomplished as a team figuring out the parts we needed to fabricate for this project by taking dimensions from our toy truck. We then designed all of the parts we needed on SolidWorks creating 3D models and drawings, and we created a test assembly of our crane mechanism with a moving motion analysis. All of these can be found in the following blog posts. Not much work was done on the Arduino code this week however, because most of it is complete, we will be finalizing the code and posting it to the blog next week.

The project is going very well, our goals from last week have been met, and our plan is exactly the same as it was set to be, and we feel our project will be a success.

Goals Set For Next Week:

1. The parts will be submitted for fabrication next week, since our solid models are complete.
2. A more fine tuned Arduino code will be completed including the final servo and push button, along with our LED Screen.

Test of Motion For Our Crane Mechanism

This is the test motion analysis for our crane mechanism attached to the bed cover. This is what will be mounted to our toy pickup truck bed. The video demonstrates the rotation of the whole mechanism and he up and down movement of the boom. This motion is controlled by Arduino and all servo motors with the movement being controlled by potentiometers. If the motion analysis is updated, another video will be posted, but right now it demonstrates everything that it is supposed to.

Test Assembly of Tow Truck Crane

- Here is a test assembly of our crane mechanism mounted to our bed cover. The final assembly and exploded view will be added later. The second servo motor is for the winch to lift our hook.

Individual Part Models and Drawings (cont.)

3. This is the bracket that we will be 3D printing to mount our two servo motors to the circular base with.

 

Individual Part Models and Drawings (cont.)

2. The following is a 3D model of the circular base that we will mount to our bottom servo motor. This will also be the base for the rest of our assembly and we will mount our other two servo motors using brackets and our crane.

 

Individual Part Models and Drawings

The following visuals are of the parts we have designed and planned to have 3D printed and laser cut for our project.

1. This is the 3D model of the truck bed cover, same as a regular truck bed hard cover, which will be used to hide our Arduino board in the bed, and to mount our first servo motor to which will rotate the rest of the mechanism.

Just Back from the Dealership

We now have the Ford F-150 that we will be using to mount our tow arm to create our tow truck. Here is a picture:

Here is also a rough test mock up of our set up with some motion. This does not depict the full range of motion, as in the rotation of the arm. We will hook it up and update the blog.

 

Summary of Week of November 11th's Progress

As a group we have decided to create an Arduino project based on a tow truck principle. We will be designing and creating a mechanical arm assembly which will be attached to the back of a toy truck and controlled by Arduino boards. This arm assembly will rotate using a servo motor on the base of the arm. One arm linkage will move vertically using a servo motor as well. A string with a hook attached will extend and contract using a DC motor attached to the base. The DC motor will be geared down using a mechanism that we will design and manufacture using a 3D printer and a laser cutter. This will consist of the two gears connected using a belt. And a bracket to hold the motor down. The two servo motors position will be controlled using a separate potentiometer for each one. As of right now the DC motor is going to be controlled using a push button to control the direction of the motor and a potentiometer will be used to control the speed using an H- Bridge.

Our Arduino code is currently at the point where each servo is independently controlled by its own potentiometer. We have the code we expect to run the DC motor as we got from Adafruit, but we are waiting for our H-Bridge to arrive so we can test our code. We will also be using our LCD screen to indicate something about our projects movements but we have not decided upon the exact purpose yet.

As for team meetings this week Chris, Paul, and Jeremy met November, 13, 14, and 15. We all spent a total of 10 hours on our Mater the Repo Truck project this week.

The goals that we established for the next week are as follows:
1. Create solid models for the parts and a test assembly using Solidworks.
2. Continue to finalize and modify our Arduino code.



                  

Week of November 11th

For our project, we have decided to create a tow truck type crane that rotates 180 degrees, raises and lowers itself, and controls a hook on a string to pick up objects. This mechanism will be mounted to the back of a toy vehicle. These movements will be controlled by servo motors and a DC motor. Our project will be constructed of everyday objects, including parts from a 3D printer and a laser cutter.

This is where we formed our idea for this project:

 



This is a rough sketch of what we intend our project to look like and move. It will be mounted to the toy truck.

This Arduino control system is intended to move the members of our mechanical tow truck crane. The two servo motors are intended to rotate the base of the crane, and move it up and down. The DC motor is intended to extend and contract the hook tied to the string. More code may be added as we move forward in the design process.

Week of November 4th

Chris Mirageas Jr. Paul D'Orlando and Jeremy Lim decided to form a group for our mechanical design lab project. In lab we created a blog to follow the creation of our project, and its name is Mater the Repo Truck. We all signed the team contract and are ready to start building. Since we all live together and share the same class schedule, we can virtually meet whenever to work on the project.