Robot Laser
Contents
Team Super Laser Robot
Participants
Abstract
For our final project, we decided to build and program a robot laser arm pointer. We built this using our knowledge of robot arms and matlab based on lab 8 (the mini robot arm project).
Introduction
Our goal was to use the information and knowledge we had from Lab 8 to create a robotic arm that would draw a circle on a surface using a laser. The idea of a laser was interesting because it required us to use different planes in a three dimensional context, while the previous lab had "simple" x and y planes.
Background/Theory
Our project is an adaptation of the previous robot arm that could draw on a piece of paper with a pencil. We built Matlab code that could take Cartesian coordinate points and translate them, through a series of Matlab functions, into pulse counts. Pulse Counts are the length of the signal that the servo motor uses to turn to a specific angle. The script entitled MoveLaser.m calculates and creates a matrix with the coordinates of the circle that the laser draws on the wall. The laser does not actually move in a circle; it moves in 360 small lines that create the appearance of moving in a circle.
Completed Project Design
Results
Discussion/Conclusion
We had originally decided that we would draw a five pointed star, but realized that would be difficult to code and furthermore not necessarily easy for the audience to see.