Look what I Made!

Robotics Lab is a program in which I designed my own robot and then simulate it's movement. The first step is to make a block diagram that lays out all of the pieces of the robot, specifies the types of joints and what motors move which pieces. The block diagram also lays out the relationship between pieces. One piece will be a parent and one piece will be a child. This comes into play with joints because different pieces will move in different ways depending on the relationship and the type of joint. Think of a ball and socket. The distinction is important because the parent is the socket and the child is the ball. It is also important with motors because it determines which piece will move in relation to the other. The most common motor type is a servo motor. A servo motor is really important for robots because you can tell the motor what angle you want the piece it acts on to be at and it will move the piece to that angle and keep it there. This is what allows a robot to raise it's hand or walk, because a servo motor is telling the knee to move to x angle and then move to another angle and so on.

After the motors, joints, and pieces are planned out it's time to start virtually constructing the block diagram. This means building shapes for each piece and each piece may have multiple shapes. The shapes are pre-determined, such as box, cylinder, or cone, but the dimensions are customized to the appropriate size for the robot. Additionally shapes can be added together to make new shapes. If you look at the video the cross on the top has rounded edges, this is because the piece is a combination of a box and cylinders on the end. The displacement from the origin needs to be calculated to put the piece in its proper position. After the pieces are in place it is time to put the motors and joints in the suitable positions so things don't start rotating in mid-air magically unattached to anything (which i experienced the first time i tried to run it).

The next step is to then write the code that makes the motors move. I used some of the code from the tutorial but had to add lines for the extra motors I had and also messed around with the motor controls. The computer I am working on makes really loud noises whenever it tries to update the animation too often so I had to find a good combination of speed to run the motors at and re-drawing of the animation.

After Inho stepped through the tutorial with me he said ok now build your own robot. At first I couldn't even think of anything! i literally had a blank board in front of me that i had complete control over how to fill but was left just staring at an empty screen. The only thing that was coming to mind was a robot like a human but that seemed unoriginal seeing as I was in the Hubo lab and complicated for my first construction. A ferris wheel then popped into my head but what I was imagining as a ferris wheel only had one motor and i wanted to prove to inho i could make something more than a dinky pendulum like the tutorial. I made what I call a swing set but it is more like tea cups/tire swings. The cross itself is spinning and then the swings hanging down are also spinning so if one were to sit on the circles (like the little capsule is) one would be spinning in circles in circles. The purpose of the capsule and the prisms are to make it easier to visually track the spinning motions.

I was really happy when i successfully made this! I had to go through a lot of trials, changed the design, added/ subtracted motors, changed joints, re-wrote portions of the code that makes it move, and tons of wonderful help from inho when i couldnt fix something (though in my defense the computer is in korean so it is really hard to go through directories and find stuff or understand the error codes, but regardless inho is the best and spent most of his time solving problems i didnt even know I had), but i finally did it! I think I am on schedule and feel like i have done something constructive with my week. and it is only thursday : )