Project 3: Revenge of the recycling system

The objective of this project was to design a system for sorting and recycling containers using their respective material

The objective of the modelling sub-team is to fabricate a design that would be able to move hopper using a rotary actuator to deposit materials into a recycling bin. To fulfill the design constraints, the mechanism should be lightweight, efficient, and secure. On the other hand, the computing sub-team’s objective was to create a computer program that can control a Q-bot and get it to deposit the containers into the respective bins.

After understanding and throughly reading through the project at hand, we began by individually identifying the objectives, constraints, and functions. After this we put our ideas together and generated a refined problem statement. Finally, we had created Pseudocode for the computer program and created multiple preliminary concept sketches of possible ideas for our mechanism.

During this project I took the role as coordinator of the modelling sub-team.

After completing these sketches we worked towards obtaining our final mechanism idea, by completing refined sketches and then utilizing a weighted decision matrix to rank our options.

Though this was the design we had chosen. We ended up changing our design because gears were not very easy to use for this project since they would require means of laser cutting and 3D printing material is not suitable for gears because of its friction. Also gears need to be stationary and precise which was very difficult to do in this situation.

We decided to continue using the rotary actuator, but instead created a design consisting of two rods, a connecter, and a stabilizer.

We then completed a solid model design using Autodesk Inventor. We underwent a meeting with our TA to go over the design, potential changes, and to receive feedback.

Most of our time was spent integrating this into the practical environment. Using Prusa Slicer, we 3D printed the parts and built the mechanism using the physical hopper.