We are hanging out today at the museum until one if you want to come check us out. We will be teaching kids about the mechanics of our wheels and rocker-bogie suspension.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
PCB Boards are in and Mounted
Our Team's Electrical Lead - Nicholas Socky - has been working on the PCB board design to reduce weight and minimize space needed for electrical component connections. After weeks of work ensuring the boards were close to perfection, the boards were ordered. For Nick's first board design, the boards came in and worked flawlessly. The connects were correct with no errors. The design stacks the PCB boards over the Arduino to reduce the wire connections needed. Two boards are used to connect the majority of the electrical systems and are stacked on top of each other to minimize the required space even further.
Attached on the board (and visible in the photo above) are the GPS unit (top), the Current Sensor (right side), the DC-DC converter (top back), and the Arduino Board (below). A lot of work went into the electrical design to take from the DC battery packs from Cell-Con to provide enough power for all the components on the rover.
Testing is still underway, but these PCB boards are really helping keep the electrical components organized and condensed.
Attached on the board (and visible in the photo above) are the GPS unit (top), the Current Sensor (right side), the DC-DC converter (top back), and the Arduino Board (below). A lot of work went into the electrical design to take from the DC battery packs from Cell-Con to provide enough power for all the components on the rover.
Testing is still underway, but these PCB boards are really helping keep the electrical components organized and condensed.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
A Few Events Coming Up in the Next Few Weeks
With the semester winding down, our team seems to be on overdrive to make sure our rover is running flawlessly. Testing is currently taking place in the Space @ VT building in the hallway with many other students gathering around to see the rover in action.
Besides testing, Animus will be making a few appearences in the New River Valley area. If you are local and want to see Animus run over all terrain and pick up different objects, check out the list below.
All design teams at Virginia Tech will be at this showcase to show off their year long projects. This will be our teams first run for our poster presentation along with Animus' first complete public appearance. We are hoping Animus attracts a few eyes and steals the spotlight.
This even will be a launch for the Fall Science Festival taking place around October 10th, 2014. We will be showing off Animus to locals and students. Though this is the announcement date, there will be many people there to see science exhibits. The actual Fall Science Festival will have approximately 2000 students in attendance.
This will be our Senior Design final presentation at the Space@VT building in Blacksburg, VA. This presentation will showcase our teams progress and final design for the rover.
Besides testing, Animus will be making a few appearences in the New River Valley area. If you are local and want to see Animus run over all terrain and pick up different objects, check out the list below.
Design Showcase
May 1st 2014
Hancock Hall
All design teams at Virginia Tech will be at this showcase to show off their year long projects. This will be our teams first run for our poster presentation along with Animus' first complete public appearance. We are hoping Animus attracts a few eyes and steals the spotlight.
2014 Science Festival
May 7th 2014
Roanoke Farmers' Market
This even will be a launch for the Fall Science Festival taking place around October 10th, 2014. We will be showing off Animus to locals and students. Though this is the announcement date, there will be many people there to see science exhibits. The actual Fall Science Festival will have approximately 2000 students in attendance.
Final Presentation
3:30 PM - May 8th 2014
Space @ VT building
This will be our Senior Design final presentation at the Space@VT building in Blacksburg, VA. This presentation will showcase our teams progress and final design for the rover.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
New Logo Design
After weeks of tweeking our team logo, we think we finally have something worth showing off. The logo below will most likely be put onto anything and everything. Polos are also in the process of being made. Watch out NASA, our team is going to be looking pretty fly for your restricted airspace.
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Sunday, April 20, 2014
Rover Update: Turbo Mode
Check out one of our test videos of our rover. At 12:30 at night, Animus finally made it onto the roads for initial testing. This video is of Animus going at a turbo speed in the Space @ VT parking lot. Some other testing on different terrains was also done.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Kids' Tech University Outreach
PYREX volunteered at Kids' Tech University, an outreach program for K-12 students in the New River Valley area, on March 22, 2014. An estimated 400 children came to the event to learn about STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) programs, and what an interest in STEM courses could lead to. Many different activities took place to take complicated information and make it accessible to younger students. Besides our demonstration, which will be discussed below, there were a lot of really engaging exhibits for even an Engineering Senior at Virginia Tech. Studio STEM: Save the Seabirds, BAJA, NRV Master Gardeners, Microgravity, and Weather Balloning in the Atmosphere were only a few of the many exhibits in attendance. A lot of interesting games and demonstrations were used to bring advanced scientific information down to K-12 student levels. As an Aerospace Engineer the Weather Balloons and the Atmosphere booth stuck out to me. The booth used helium balloons to show how payloads must be scaled for weather balloons along with Cartesian divers to show the effects of fluid pressure changes. If you have an opportunity to help out or lead a panel at KTU, I would strongly suggest doing so.
At our booth, we had three different activities to demonstrate our rover. The "high-tech" portion of our exhibit talked about the mechanical side of the rover. The Rocker-Bogie suspension system was shown and compared with skid-steering. Having the actual framework to show the rovers along side lego demonstrations of both suspensions allows children to observe the mechanics. The next part of our demonstration was a little game we came up with to show the claw mechanism collecting the "rocks", which in our case were washers with fasteners attached to easily pick up the washers. In one minute children had to collect and deposit as many "rocks" as possible without overloading the system with commands. What was great about having children play with our system, was that we could debug common errors that they may have experienced. (Win-Win in our opinion)
The last station was a very simple game to show how our system must interact. By breaking the children into groups of three, they had to take on the role of a rover system. Taped out was "TEXAS", our made up rock yard where our rovers had to collect "rocks", which in this case were large plastic bowls. Outside of the taped area was "Virginia", our home and control center. Since our rover has to communicate between Texas and Virginia, the rover and command input/output were blindfolded. The third team member was the human input or controller and had to interact with the command input/output to convey the commands, both in Virginia. The children with blindfolds were able to speak, whereas the third team member could see the field, but was unable to speak. The controller had to give commands in a way that the "electronics/program" could understand to be able to communicate with the rover. The "rover" had to listen to commands and try and collect as many rocks as possible. The controller sometimes had to act fast due to some communication issues/ bugs. If you think this sounds funny to begin with, it was even funnier to watch. Students came in thinking this would be a piece of cake, but later found out it was very frustrating to work as a concise unit to complete a simple task of picking up a few plates.
Overall the students were quite happy with the booth. They had a lot of fun with hands on activities and being able to run around and play. A lot of parents were quite interested in our booth and were really impressed by how we were able to appease students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Even some parents enjoyed the games and demonstrations we had.
At our booth, we had three different activities to demonstrate our rover. The "high-tech" portion of our exhibit talked about the mechanical side of the rover. The Rocker-Bogie suspension system was shown and compared with skid-steering. Having the actual framework to show the rovers along side lego demonstrations of both suspensions allows children to observe the mechanics. The next part of our demonstration was a little game we came up with to show the claw mechanism collecting the "rocks", which in our case were washers with fasteners attached to easily pick up the washers. In one minute children had to collect and deposit as many "rocks" as possible without overloading the system with commands. What was great about having children play with our system, was that we could debug common errors that they may have experienced. (Win-Win in our opinion)
The last station was a very simple game to show how our system must interact. By breaking the children into groups of three, they had to take on the role of a rover system. Taped out was "TEXAS", our made up rock yard where our rovers had to collect "rocks", which in this case were large plastic bowls. Outside of the taped area was "Virginia", our home and control center. Since our rover has to communicate between Texas and Virginia, the rover and command input/output were blindfolded. The third team member was the human input or controller and had to interact with the command input/output to convey the commands, both in Virginia. The children with blindfolds were able to speak, whereas the third team member could see the field, but was unable to speak. The controller had to give commands in a way that the "electronics/program" could understand to be able to communicate with the rover. The "rover" had to listen to commands and try and collect as many rocks as possible. The controller sometimes had to act fast due to some communication issues/ bugs. If you think this sounds funny to begin with, it was even funnier to watch. Students came in thinking this would be a piece of cake, but later found out it was very frustrating to work as a concise unit to complete a simple task of picking up a few plates.
Overall the students were quite happy with the booth. They had a lot of fun with hands on activities and being able to run around and play. A lot of parents were quite interested in our booth and were really impressed by how we were able to appease students from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Even some parents enjoyed the games and demonstrations we had.
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