Bringing a Life-Measurement, 3D Printed Robotic to Life

Our June 2018 Hacker of the Month is a 14-year outdated pupil who attends the Nueva College in San Mateo. The Nueva College is an internationally-recognized impartial PreK-12 faculty, serving gifted learners since 1967. They use a dynamic instructional mannequin to allow gifted college students to discover ways to make selections that can profit the world.

Sean Cheong has been working with 3D printers and design since he was in center faculty. After getting a style of the chances of what he may do with 3D printing, Sean determined to embark on an epic quest to design, fabricate and construct a life-size, 3D printed robotic. His imaginative and prescient known as Challenge ‘Bot 44.

In The Starting

In center faculty, Sean was first uncovered to 3D printing in his mannequin rocket constructing endeavors. Because the group captain for the Woodland Rocketeers, he realized that he may use Fusion 360 to mannequin fins for his rocket that had excellent symmetry. Along with saving his group a ton of labor in slicing and sanding wood fins, he was extra precisely in a position to embody spin tabs on the fins to supply spin stabilization – these permit their rocket to fly straight up, even in windy circumstances, that are generally prevalent within the Bay Space.

Sean then translated his work on mannequin rockets with 3D printing right into a 1st place win at his faculty science honest! Utilizing 3D printed elements rather than conventional wood parts, just like the nostril cone and fins, helped his group’s rockets fly straighter and higher.

Larger and Higher

After getting a small style of what 3D printing may do, Sean wished to do larger, extra advanced initiatives. For that, he wanted extra 3D printers! 

Sean at present has three, 3D printers at dwelling, together with a Flashforge Creator Professional (his first), a Robo R2, and a Creality CR-10. He enjoys beginning a print earlier than mattress and waking as much as a brand new, 3D printed piece. Getting a fast turnaround on his elements permits him to revise errors, make modifications to the elements, and to get constant outcomes on a number of iterations of the identical elements. Sean sometimes makes use of PLA and ABS for his 3d printed robotic elements.

Sean isn’t solely good at getting nice 3D prints, he’s additionally adept at repairing 3D printers. His faculty printing I-Lab had two Makerbot Replicators that have been out of fee when he began highschool. Sean recognized the issues that have been holding the 3D printers from working. He then realized how you can substitute the extruder and clear a blockage in one of many nozzles. As soon as he affected these repairs, he additionally tuned the Makerbots by tightening the stepper motor belts to forestall axis skips whereas printing!

Sean’s Final Imaginative and prescient

All of this work and expertise in 3D printing led Sean to his final aim; to create a life-size, 3D printed robotic. Sean’s imaginative and prescient known as Challenge ‘Bot 44. Challenge ‘Bot 44 began with the thought of constructing a Kinect-controlled full-body robotic arms, torso, head, hip, and legs that mimics the movement of its human operator. The bodily look of ‘Bot 44 is impressed by a robotic agent character from the Missile Mouse journey collection. Robotic 44 rescues Missile Mouse from seize, they develop into pals, and collectively they save the world. Challenge ‘Bot 44 is constructed with open supply applied sciences like Raspberry Pi, makes use of off-the-shelf parts, and is totally 3D-printable.

Sean designed the primary a part of Challenge ‘Bot 44 in Autodesk Fusion 360; the robotic arm. He has spent over seven months designing, fabricating, testing and redesigning his robotic arm.

It’s a 6-DOF robotic arm powered by six servos, managed utilizing an Arduino Mega 2560, and human-operated with a Logitech Excessive 3D Professional joystick. He modeled the arm utilizing Fusion 360 and printed it with MatterHacker and Solutech filament.

The six servos powering the arms (from small to massive):

JX CLS-HV7346MG Excessive Voltage Coreless Metallic Gear Servo x 3 (2 for shoulder and 1 for elbow)

BMS-390DMH Excessive Efficiency Digital Servo x 1 (for tilting wrist)

Corona DS-236MG Metallic Gear Servo x 1 (for twisting wrist)

TowerPro MG90S x 1 (for claw)

A few of the challenges that Sean had with 3D printing the arm have been that 3D printed elements skilled extra friction. The friction triggered the joint to require extra power to show and decreased the effectivity of the servos. Sanding the print and including lubricant has helped mitigate this downside.

The 3D prints additionally had some tolerance points which triggered jerky and imprecise actions. Throughout printing, expansions and contractions of the print triggered area between every joint permitting for wiggle room to maneuver.

From this, he realized that as an alternative of utilizing a guess and take a look at strategy in geometry and dimensions, designing prematurely and making certain dimensions are appropriate considerably decreased the variety of revision prints.

One of many main classes that Sean has realized from all of his design work is that failure is part of attending to a last answer. Numerous hours of analysis, iteration, design, testing, and doing this strategy over and over are the laborious approach, however the proper approach, to get a tremendous, working design.

HackaThon Victory

Along with his 3D printing endeavors, Sean can also be an adept coder. Just lately, he competed within the GunnHacks 4.0 HackaThon at Gunn Excessive College in Palo Alto. In October 2017, this Hackathon was the primary of the season, and was attended by roughly 100 college students from the Bay Space. After a marathon coding session and solely three hours of sleep, Sean introduced dwelling a third place general prize for his ‘BladeChat’ entry. To additional his Challenge Bot ’44, he traded away a number of prizes to get a second Logitech joystick to manage a second robotic arm!

For the longer term, we will not wait to see the progress that Sean makes on Challenge ‘Bot 44! He has plenty of work forward of him, however he’s keen and excited to convey his imaginative and prescient to life to assist different individuals.

For extra info on Sean’s Challenge ‘Bot 44, you’ll be able to go to his web site right here: https://x.twobit.co/

For extra details about the Nueva College, go to the web site right here: http://www.nuevaschool.org/

The Massive Shock

One of many highlights of my time right here at MatterHackers was the possibility to shock Sean in school to award him with three spools of MatterHackers PRO PLA! The Nueva College sits straight adjoining to the Maker Faire Bay Space grounds, so a fast stroll across the nook was all it took to get there.

The workers was extraordinarily accommodating and useful in getting all the things prepared so we may shock Sean. Massive due to Scott Swaaley, Desiree Viray, Diane Rosenberg, and Meghan Riehl of the Nueva College, and to Sean’s dad, John for being in on the shock! The Nueva College is really a unbelievable facility – my interior highschool geek was extraordinarily excited to go to. In the course of the go to, we have been in a position to meet wonderful instructors, see the very sturdy gear obtainable to the scholars, and get a first-hand have a look at how the Nueva College is inspiring a future technology of scientists, artists, and creators.

Need to be our subsequent Hacker of the Month? E-mail chris.morgan@matterhackers.com, and inform us about your 3D printed creations – you possibly can be featured in our subsequent publication. Hacker of the Month wins 3 free spools of PRO Collection PLA or ABS filament to additional their pursuit of 3D printing greatness!