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 the lab spent a lot of time working on getting the gantry system ready for it first test. But similarly to last week, we were unable to achieve this goal due to more issues arising this time on the software side of things.
This week we were able to finish the cable routing and get the carriage system ready for its first test. The cable chains have now been mounted as well as the chain that actually moves the carriage across the truss. Despite us not being able to use the motor to test the carriage’s movement we were able to push it along and it moved as designed without any issues. We are hoping that sometime next week we will be able to move the carriage with the motors as Dr. Petruska was anxious to get the gantry up and running so it can be raised and suspended above the testbed.
Carriage with cable chains attached
In addition to this I also had time to finish the gear safety box that surrounds the gears that pull the carriage and truss movers gear assembly. We were able to cut and drill some acrylic panels to use as the walls for the box. This box is intended to stop potential debris being shot out from all the tension of the chain. With the box absorbing the impact of this debris, it could stop people or equipment from being damaged.
I also did a very fun little side project. I have very little experience with coding, so they gave me a little task to help me learn some. Basically, someone in the lab always sets an alarm that goes off every hour and reminds everyone to drink water. What they wanted to do was to use an Arduino and code something that has an alarm every hour so we don’t have to use someone’s phone. It was super simple to code and make, but still a lot of fun. They also want me to design a PCB for this alarm so they can continue to use it without having to use a hole Arduino board. It’s been a super fun little project so far and I’m looking forward to continuing to work on it.
Outside the internship, my mom drove up to Golden and we went and got some dinner. It was nice to see my mom after 4 weeks away from home.
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