We have recently entered the JPL Engineering competition and task is to turn a PVC pipe from a horizontal position to a vertical position. We have raised money, came up with a plan of our machine, bought materials, and now we are currently assembling the contraption.
So far we have built the base and the arm of our machine. We are currently working on the claw logic with the Arduino and breadboard but that is coming along smoothly. We need to have a fully functioning claw with functional logic. We need to attach the claw to the arm. We need a motor to pull the arm up and finally we need to stabilize the entire structure. We still have a lot more to do but we are slowly making progress.
We have finished prototyping and have finally started our new design. As you can see we have built the base and lever arm for out final machine. My part in this process was the measuring and cutting of the wooden base pieces and I also help marry the parts together. I also helped build the lever arm by drilling the wooden supports onto the PVC pipe. We have ran weight dropping test to see how high the weight has to drop from and we found out that our structure needs to be at least four feet tall. Before the competition we need to set up a pulley system with a weight and also add a bracket to make sure the pipe doesn't over rotate.
