Blog #5

Remote-Controlled Garden Seeder

Team 31- Beyza Kural, Syed Hussain, Nawaf Abulhaija

Progress Update 12/11/2023 - 02/03/2024

During the work period of December 11th – February 3rd, our team made some considerable design changes to our project that should help our device be more effective, efficient, and reliable. Earlier in winter break, we sought to find any shortcomings in our device to limit any issues during the execution phase. We began by finding a mentor who was experienced in modifying and building remote controlled devices, had experience in connecting PCB boards, and could help us ensure that the parts we selected were going to be compatible together. We were able to find a mentor, Jarrett Jordan, who’s a content creator on YouTube and specializes in remote controlled vehicles. We met with Jarrett towards the end of winter break since he was out of town and went through our expected parts list. Some of the main issues we found were regarding our motor selection for both the servo turning motor and the main drive motor. The main issues were that although we calculated that the torque output would be enough with the previous motors we selected, they are meant for much smaller scale applications and would burn out after a few uses. This would make our device much less reliable and was something we decided not to risk or compromise. Our mentor helped us find a children’s ride on toy that was close in footprint to our anticipated device, included two drive motors that were already geared for our desired speed, and would fit well within our budget. This was a difficult task as we were looking on the used market and many of the options had issues such as dead batteries, worn tires, or cosmetic issues on the frame. Towards the end of January, we were finally able to source the device and began deconstructing it for parts. We’ve made significant progress deconstructing the vehicle and are going to be using the tires, motors, axle, battery, and potentially the aluminum frame. The deconstructed device can be seen below, and our team has disconnected the battery from the acceleration and power button of the device.

Figure 1: Deconstructed Power Wheels Dune Racer.


Figure 2: Vehicle with steering wheel detached and battery removed.


Figure 3: Rechargeable 12-volt power wheels battery disconnected from vehicle.

Another considerable design change the team is considering is changing the footprint of the device. Our original goal was to keep the device as compact as possible to make it easier for storage. We anticipated the device to be 2 feet in length and width however since we’re now sourcing parts from this vehicle, our footprint will need to be larger to accommodate for the larger battery and tires. The width of our device will be increased by ~6 inches and the length is still to be determined since we’ll need to fully disassemble the device to see the minimum spacing required between the tires and to see whether we’ll be using the existing device frame and modifying it. The goal of this change is to not risk the turning radius of the device since our device tire diameter was significantly increased from our original parts list. Our team is going to prioritize functionality over size since it’s more important that our device functions as intended rather than the size to our client. Lastly, rather than using a servo motor for our turning mechanism, we will be using an actuator which can be seen below.

Figure 4: Actuator for turning mechanism.

                For the work period of February 4th – February 17th, our team plans to finish deconstructing the vehicle until just the frame, motor, and tires are left. We will also be ordering the rest of the parts we’ll need including the transmitter, receiver, another 12 V battery, 14-gauge wire, male and female space connectors, splice connectors, linear actuator, linear actuator control, and brushed electronic speed controller, tub for our seed mechanism, and the seed disperser. Once our team takes apart the vehicle, we will decide whether the current frame can be used and will either modify it or purchase new metal. Our vendor for the steel and aluminum frame has quoted a 4–5-day turnaround once the order has been put in so we will target to place the order by 02/10 so that we can begin assembly by the 15th of February. This will deepen our foot in our 5th milestone, which is assembly, and will give us time to fully construct the device and have it ready for testing in the work period that follows.

            Some obstacles that our team may face is the total cost of the welds. The machine shop has quoted us ~$100 for 4 elbows which means that our device frame will cost roughly $300 for the materials and welds. This leaves us with $150 for the rest of the parts but as of now, we would still be within our $600 budget. If the actual price is higher at the time of our purchase, we will consider having the welds done by one of our advisors at a much cheaper rate. We’re hoping to avoid this since our advisor will be busy for the next few weeks with another project and the time constraint may be hard to work with for them.





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