Blog #7

 

Remote-Controlled Garden Seeder

 Team 31- Beyza Kural, Syed Hussain, Nawaf Abulhaija

Progress Update 03/09/2024 - 03/23/2024

            For the work period of March 9-March 23, the team has begun fabricating the main frame of the device which will house all the electrical components and be used as the body of the device. The team began the work period by first constructing the main frame of the body to take essential measurements of any component that may need to be cut or resized after assembly. This initial step can be seen in Figure 1 below and depicts the initial assembly before measurements were taken to precisely cut the metal.


Figure 1: Assembly before cuts.

The axle on the right drive-end of the device protrudes out too far to where the motor is not sitting on the right-side frame as it is on the left side. The device was also too long, and it was determined that there was a lot of unnecessary space in between the rear and front tires. The team decided to shorten the device by 9- inches, bringing the rear tires closer to the front without affecting the turning radius of the device. Accurate measurements were taken to replicate the same cut on both ends of the aluminum bars as well as marking up the axle for a cut. The result of both cutting and filing the axle and aluminum bars can be seen in Figure 2.


Figure 2: Aluminum bars and stainless-steel axle cut to size.

This severely reduces the footprint of our device and helps make it a little bit more compact and storable. After this, the team went to the metal shop with the remaining measurements to have the top side of the frame cut which includes 6 8” aluminum bars, 2 21” aluminum bars, and a 16-gauge aluminum sheet for the base of the device where all the electrical components will be stored. The metal can be seen below cut to size and has been cut to fit symmetrically with the aluminum frame.

Figure 3: Aluminum base and bars cut at metal shop.

The next step was to connect brackets onto the vertical beams holding the top end of the frame. The team used 1.5” stainless steel 90-degree brackets to mount the main beams onto the device frame. Depicted below in Figure 4 are the beams with the brackets attached to the device.

Figure 4: Vertical beams with brackets attached.

The team didn’t complete the main frame since the brackets were backordered and took some to ship. Also, due to inventory issues, the actuator company Firgelli at the time of ordering the first actuator only had 6’’ strokes in stock. The team determined that it was too big for the purpose of this project and the inventory was recently updated so the team was waiting for the 3” stroke actuator to arrive this weekend before installing everything.

            For the work period of March 24-April 6, the team’s plan for near term work is to finish assembling the device frame from March 24-March 26. On March 27-28, the team will focus on constructing the seeder hopper which will be used to disperse seeds from atop the device. Following that, the team will then connect all the electrical components together such as the main drive motors, actuator, camera, and seeder on March 29-March 30. The team’s demo date has been set to April 2 so they will utilize the following days after fabrication to test and ensure everything is working as expected. The last step in this work period will to begin testing the device and its components to ensure it’s working as intended by the team’s specifications sheet.

            The main obstacle the team foresees in the next two weeks is the seeder hopper which will be the most challenging component of the device to fabricate. This is because the seeder hopper will need to be large enough to hold 20 pounds of seed but will need to be designed in such a way that the seeds don’t get stuck in the bottom. The team has decided to make the inside of the hopper inclined to induce a constant flow of seeds into the distribution mechanism. Another obstacle is staying within the budget. The team’s initial estimates for the device budget were $800 but due to the smaller pieces of metal being cut, the local supplier is charging more than some of the online distributors. Though the team is still saving a lot in shipping costs, it’s still drastically raising the cost of the device and the team expects to go ~12.5% above budget.

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