Hello everyone, my name is Andrew Kistler, and I am spending my summer in Golden Colorado at Colorado School of Mines. For the next seven weeks, I will be working in the M3 Robotics lab with Dr. Andrew Petruska as well as some graduate and undergraduate students.
This week we have been working hard to get the gantry system up and running as Dr. Petruska wants the entire enclosure to be ready for testing in the next 2 weeks.
My first task was to make a cover that goes over the gears that move the gantry system. The gantry moves by using a motor gearbox combo that turns a gear that rides along a chain. For this to work properly, the chain has to be under a lot of tension and there were some concerns about something breaking. If something breaks under that amount of tension, it would likely be shot off at very high speeds, posing a danger to people or equipment. So I designed a box out of aluminum extrusion that will cover the gears and ensure that if it breaks nothing will be damaged. It was a very rough prototype as the lab didn’t have all the right length of parts needed to assemble it properly, but it worked as a proof of concept. Next week someone is going to cut the parts I need so that I can make the actual part, and I am going to mount some abs plastic panels on to it to complete the part.
I also worked on mounting the motors to the gearboxes and secured the screws with lock tight to ensure that they don’t come loose in the future. The gearboxes that the lab is using for the gantry system are massive because they have a 12:1 gear ratio. This gear ratio allows the motors to have a lot of torque while sacrificing speed. But because the gantry should only move at around 5 mph, torque is a much higher priority. These motor gearbox combos will turn a gear that will pull the gantry system along the chain.
Finally, for this week I helped assemble the gantry system. With the help of some undergraduates and some other interns, we lifted the truss that spans the length of the enclosure onto the carts that move the gantry. The truss was super heavy, but we had enough people to make it manageable. We also put the carriage (the cart that moves on top of the truss) on its tracks as well as mounted the chain tensioners on either end. Once the gantry was assembled, I helped wire all the motors and computers that would move the gantry. We had hoped to begin testing the motors to see if they function properly, but we didn’t have the correct plug to connect everything to power, so we will likely test the motors next week instead.
Truss mounted on top of the truss mover carts
Truss spanning the width of the enclosure with chain tensioners at either end
Carriage and motor being wired up to the computer
Outside the internship, my housemate had some of his friends over, and we played a card game called Magic the Gathering which was a lot of fun.
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