Intake Speed

By Karina

Task: Analyze efficiency of our intake system

A big part of our redesign is improving our intake system. To see where some of the errors may lie, we took detailed videos of our robot intaking silver and gold minerals from a side view, one mineral at a time. We measured the time between when the intake first made contact with the mineral, and when the mineral was directly underneath the rotating icecube tray, and therefore in our control, using LoggerPro video analysis.

Silver Minerals

Trial	Δt (s)
1	0.733
2	0.466
3	1.233
4	1.934
5	0.766
6	0.634
7	0.600
8	0.466
9	2.133
10	0.700

Gold Minerals

Trial	Δt (s)
1	0.234
2	0.532
3	0.300
4	0.533
5	0.533
6	0.300
7	1.433
8	0.567
9	0.800
10	0.433

On average, silver mineral intake took 0.967s and gold mineral intake took 0.567s, meaning our intake was more efficient at gold mineral intake. Looking at Big Wheel intake frame by frame revealed faults in our intake. Intaking gold minerals went smoothly. For silver minerals, however, the slack in the ice cube tray resulted in it losing its grip on the mineral multiple times before the mineral was firmly grasped. This is likely the result of frictional forces struggling to overcome the elastic force of the flexible icecube tray pushing outwards. In trial 4, for example, our intake lost its grip on the mineral 4 times before it could be considered in our control.

Next Steps: Redesign Intake Mechanism

We are assembling a subteam of builders to take on the challenge of designing a new intake system. Some issues we'll have to address include:

• The slack in the center of the corn-on-the-cob intake


• The silver minerals slipping on the sorter
We'll have to have what changes will be made to our current design. (E-147, Intake Update)