Design and Manufacturing I, or 2.007, is a class I took over my junior spring focused on individually designing and fabricating a robot to complete various tasks on a competition board. The class begins with weekly physical and written assignments meant to develop relevant skills, as well as milestones corresponding to various stages in the construction of the robot. The weekly assignments end at around the halfway point so students can focus on their robot in preparation for the competition at the end of the semester. My final robot was able to drive around the board, rotate to wheel to ascend an elevator, and manipulate objects on an elevated platform.
Some of the weekly assignments involve fabricating a small robot, called a "mini-me," and modifying it to perform specified tasks.
One of the weekly physical assignments was to use Arduino to program the mini-me to ascend and descend the ramp on the competition board autonomously.
The initial stages of fabrication focus on the Most Critical Module (MCM) of the robot. This was my initial prototype for the spinner that rotated the wheel.
By the end of the semester, my robot was able to consistently drive up to the elevator and rotate the wheel to ascend it.
The theme of the class that year was "Rickbotics and Mortchanical Mayhem," and one of the ways to score points in the competition was by knocking "Pickle Rick" down the zipline.
