Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
15 special vehicle for transporting unstable chemicals
Area Award: Controls
 Jun Ma
Wenjia Zhou
Zhangxiaowen Gong
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design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
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presentation0.pdf
proposal0.pdf
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Our team would like to implement a vehicle (robot) for transporting unstable chemicals. The major goal is to keep the chassis stable. The project will cover the following aspects:

1. Stableness control.
To reach it, we first suggest a four-wheel omni-direction movement scheme. Instead of simply applying omni-wheels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omni_wheel), we consider to use a servo to adjust the z-axis angle of each wheel. By designing the whole vehicle symmetric respecting to both x-axis and y-axis, the vehicle can adopt a new forward direction and shifts when it turns. This method protects the on-board chemicals by reducing the centrifugal force when turning. The other major apparatus is an active suspension system on each wheel. We may use (hydraulic) actuators to allow the wheels to adapt uneven ground surface actively. A control system based on accelerometer and gyroscope will instruct the suspensions to keep the chassis even.

2. Performance measurement
In order to determine the effectiveness of the system described above, we decide to real-timely transmit the sensor data to a computer via wireless while the vehicle runs. The computer will then analyze the data by, for example, calculating the average and peak acceleration on each axis, etc. Currently we want to use a single processor for both the control system and the wireless transmission. As a result, a real-time operating system will be introduced so that the two distinct functions can run without interfering each other.

Drum Tutor Lite

Zhen Qin, Yuanheng Yan, Xun Yu

Drum Tutor Lite

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Team: Yuanheng Yan, Zhen Qin, Xun Yu

Vision: Rhythm games such as guitar hero are much easier than playing the actual drums. We want to make a drum tutor that makes playing drums as easy as guitar hero. The player is not required to read a sheet music.

Description: We will build a drum add-on that will tutor people how to play the drums. We will make a panel for visual queue of the drum and beats in a form similar to guitar hero game. The panel can be a N*10 (N varying with the drum kit) led bar array. Each horizontal bar will be a beat and each horizontal line above the bottom line will represent the upcoming beats.

There will be sensors on each drum that will fire when the drum heads is hit. The drums will be affixed with ring of light that provides the timing and accuracy of the player according to the sensors.

Of course with a flip of a switch, the drum could be a simple light up drum: when the player hits the drum, that particular drum will light up giving cool effects.

The system will be on a microprocessor. Or for more versatile uses, it could be connected to the computer. And a app will be written for the tutor.

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