Lab 13

Blog sheet Week 13:

This week’s blog sheet will be both individual and group.

Your blogsheet 13 tasks:

Tyler D:

1. Provide the updated computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

 

Breadboard Car setup

2. Explain your setup.

My set up is what I call a breadboard car.  It is made of LEGO type pieces and drives using a motor. The input to my car is a switch and may end up being a solar panel in the coming week. As of now it after the switch is flipped the power turns on the 555 timer and then using a resistor and capacitor on the trigger pin it is set to time out/shut off once it moves for 10 seconds. The output from the timer goes to an op am which outputs a higher voltage to a transistor which allows enough current draw for the motor to run give the cars size and weight.

3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

10 second Breadboard Car

Breadboard Car

4. Provide at least 2 new videos of your setup in action, one being a failed attempt.

10 Second run

 Breadboard car hitting the cabinet

There are 2 videos here and one of them shows the car stopping due to hitting the counter in my apartment so I considered this a fail. The other one shows the car stopping after 10 seconds, however it does look like it hit the counter.

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

The only failure I had that was never on video was the power consumption issue. At first I did not realize that the motor would require a transistor between it and the op amp. Once it was added to the circuit the motor was allowed to draw enough current to move the car. Before this was done I could not get the car to move.

Tyler L:

1.       Provide the updated computer drawing for your individual RG setup.

My Circuit....so far

2.       Explain your setup.

My circuit has the same idea as before, use a pressure sensor to trigger some voltage to go through an OpAmp to run a motor and pull back a catapult.  However I needed to increase the initial voltage coming in and add two transistors to handle the current I needed to successfully pull back to catapult. 

3.       Provide photos of the circuit and setup.

A picture of my circuit, but with only one transistor.  I added another later

A picture of the gears I added in order to wind my catapult.

A picture of my catapult.

My entire setup.

4.       Provide at least 2 new videos of your setup in action, one being a failed attempt.

This is a failed attempt at launching the ball, as you can see I need to keep the ball from hopping off the "bucket".

A successful launch of my catapult.

5.       What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

During this week one of the biggest issues I had was getting enough current through to run the motor with all the resistance the rubber bands are giving it.  However with some help from my class mates and our professor I was able to figure out a way around this problem and properly get my catapult to wind back.  The biggest two things I did was to run the power supply linked so I was getting a 20 volt output from A and B, then the second thing I did was add two transistors to handle the load of amperage that I needed for the motor.

Tyler D & Tyler L together

6.       Group task: Explain your group RG setup.

Our group RG setup consists of a car made by Tyler D and the circuit with the catapult made by Tyler L.  The input to Tyler D's car is a switch that will be flipped by Vince using his motor setup. After my car drives for 10 seconds it hits a bunch of dominoes that will cause a magnet to fall over and be attracted to another magnet under the pressure sensor. Once this occurs the pressure applied to the sensor will be the “on” switch to Tyler L’s RG project. This in turn will trigger the motor to run, wind the catapult, and launch a ping pong ball across (hopefully) a few of the desks.

7.       Group task: Video of a test run of your group RG.

A somewhat successful run of our group RG circuits.