WINDOW MONKEY
Schedule
Due to many changes happened throughout the entire semester, our schedule was fluidic and flexible. On the other hand, it was better for us to test the entire system as earlier as possible since our design naturally makes every subsystem indivisible. Table. 1 is our entire schedule and Figure 1. shows the big picture of our schedule with Gantt Chart.
Table 1: Schedule
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Week Date Assignment Group Tasks
1 Jan. 31 Design Proposal, Website -Build Mock-up
2 Feb. 5 Mock-up Demo -Part Selection
- -Sensor Lab
3 Feb. 12 Motor Demo - Micro controlled DC, RC, Stepper motor Lab
4 Feb. 19 System Demo 1 -CAD development
Website check 1 -Torque, Power, Suction Analysis
5 Feb. 26 System Demo 2 -Suction Demo
-Simulation Program
6 Mar. 5 Design Presentation -Simulation of coverage/motion
Peer evaluation -Initial Fabrication
-Suction Demo
7 Mar. 12 Spring Break -Build First Prototype
8 Mar. 19 System Demo 3 -First autonomous attempt to demo swing
motion with power tether
9 Mar. 26 System Demo 4 -Autonomous attempt to demo swing motion
-Initial cleaning system demo
-Mount sensors and barrier detection
10 Apr. 4 System Demo 5 -Autonomous attempt to demo swing motion
-Integrate cleaning system
-Integrate battery system
11 Apr. 9 System Demo 6 -Autonomous attempt to demo swing motion
-Calibrate IMU and sensors
-Attempt detecting barrier
12 Apr. 16 System Demo 7 -Autonomous attempt to demo swing motion
-Demonstrate effective cleaning
-Demonstrate autonomous barrier cross
13 Apr. 23 Final Demo -Demonstrate full functionality
-Show properly functioning washer
Figure 1: Gantt Chart of the Schedule
Budget
Our total cost ended up to be $1,315, which was not expected before the last week of this semester. In the very beginning, we bought linear servos, geared servos, valves as our major components after finding parts fitting our design concepts. High-torque linear and geared servos for our robot to perform rotations against gravity were especially the most expensive parts in our robot. Still, our robot should be cheap, which costed around $500 to build the first prototype. However, couples of electrical issues finally burnt our major components. We replaced our linear servos 2 times that increased our cost by $158. Moreover, the urgency made us to pay $80 more for shipping in order to get components before final demos and the public presentation. Hence, we spent beyond the original budget in the end. Figure 2 shows the entire list of parts we bought.
Figure 2: Budget List
Risk Management
Time Management
Building a robot with a novel design was really risky. Considering we might face more potential failures, we met regularly on Fridays in addition to team meetings before talking to professors and TAs on Mondays and Wednesdays. This helped every member know the up-to-date progress of our robot. We also made major testings, such as attempts to move autonomously on the window, during the meetings on Friday. On the other hand, due to the indivisibility of our design, we assigned time slots for each member to do their work sequentially. That is, everyone can have the robot for a period of time to implement certain functions.
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