Design Concept

Our research and development will focus on achieving the best results with the materials we have available. At this point Team C has identified an important limitation with our proposed servo motor build, and that is the angle of rotation. The servo motor can only rotate 180 degrees (90 degrees in each direction). This limits our design because we cannot space out our bin openings around a complete circle (360 degrees) as we had intended. We will research solutions for this, and compensate in our design by moving the layout of our circles, and also considering modifications such as adding a gear system to allow for 360 degree rotation. Another thing to consider would be abandoning the servo motor all together, and adopting a system where a motor combined with reflective sensors are used for the rotation. Our team will research all of these options and select the best one.

SolidWorks Sketch for Prototype #1

For R&D 1, we will use Sketchbook to calibrate the sensor, and then measure it’s accuracy as well as identify the best layout for our bin openings considering the 180 degree limit.

For R&D 2, we will again use Sketchbook to test the reflective sensors. We will then test the motor and see how accurately we can predict where it will stop, given that it is not a servo motor, it does not have breaks, and will have some momentum. 

For Detail Design 1, we will consider the possibility of the gear system. Here we will design a system that could potentially allow the servo motor to reach 360 degrees of rotation.

Upon completion of our R&D, we hope to have the information needed to validate the final prototype. In particular, we expect to know which rotation system makes the most sense. We expect other teams will offer valuable insights on issues we have not yet noticed.