#Overview

The basic idea from the hardware front involves designing and programming a robotic arm to pick and place blocks at specific locations. The locations would be decided based on vision system that captures scenario on-board and will pick and place the object based on the AI developed by the software team.

Task Description and Video Links of the progress so far :

• Pictures of potentiometer placement for feedback from motors :

1. Base Motor

2. Shoulder Motor

3. Elbow motor

4. Gripper motor

• Video demonstration of Arm movement and corresponding change in value of potentiometer

We connected potentiometer to one of the motors. The motor was given supply and we noted the corresponding changes in the potentiometer value displayed on a serial monitor of Arduino. >>> Arm movement and change in Potentiometer

• Video demonstration of moving the motor in a controlled manner using the shield

Here, we have connected all the feedback potentiometers to the arm and connected all the motor power supply pins to the Adafruit Arduino motor shield. We can now control the motion of the motor based on the time for which we supply power to the DC motors. >>> Controlled Motion

• Video demonstrating arm movement when given a specific position on the board (base motor NOT functional)

Here, we move the motors to the required positions on the tic-tac-toe board by manually giving power supply to the motors and note down the values of all the potentiometers for each position. After the calibration is done, we put all those values in the code to make the arm movement automated based on the position given as an input. >>> Controlled Place

• Video demonstration from base position to specific position on the board (base motor issue resolved and functional)

We fixed the issue we had with the base motor. The issue was that with Arduino providing power to the Motor Shield, the base motor which has the highest load could not get the required driving current. We fixed this using an external power supply for the Arduino which had the specification of 5V, 4A maximum rating. This provided the required current to drive the base motor. Here, we move the motor from the base position to the specific position on the 3x3 grid. The location is decided by a pseudo-random number generator and the arm traverses to the specified location with accuracy. >>> Position based navigation

Arduino Code Links

Arduino Code for precision motor maneuvering

Final Arduino Code for Robotics Arm

Gantt Chart