Heterosix

An extensive mechanical engineering school project

"How far can you go from a school project?"

Duration:

2023 Feb — 2023 Nov

Team:

Ethan Chen, Jerry Lo, Ai-yung Chen, Howard Liu, Avery Lin, Sophie Chou

Role:

CEO, programmer, mechanical design, corporate identity design, poster

Skills:

2D design, 3D design, software integration, entrepreneurship

Duration:

2023 Feb — now

Team:

Ethan Chen, Jerry Lo, Ai-yung Chen, Howard Liu, Avery Lin, Sophie Chou

Skills:

2D design, 3D design, software integration, entrepreneurship

Overview:

I study mechanical engineering at Nation Cheng Kung University. We have a required capstone course - Mechanical Engineering Project - where the department provides us 10,000 NTD (roughly 300 USD), asking us to make and integrate a legged robot and an auto carrier vehicle to complete a given task in a limited time.

My tasks involve designing, building, and integrating the auto carrier vehicle (ACV) using Lego Mindstorms EV3 and LabVIEW; my other tasks involve the design of the team logo, presentation slides, and a poster. Apart from assisting my groupmates, I also led my group to enter a startup program at my school, for which we qualified.

We now view our startup project as a bonus to our outcome from the project course. Our fruit continues to grow.

the rules

Ideating Phase

Some early sketches I drew

Since we need to grab target items, I came up with several ideas that keeps actions simple while giving it a clean look.

Prototyping Phase

The protype of our hexapod: arm and legs

We decided to make prototypes despite having only three months to build the robot because we knew we needed to purchase higher-quality motors. With many experiments done with the prototype, we learned many lessons and were more confident about our design, including our program written in C++.

Final Product

Our final product — the hexapod

Our hexapod was undoubtedly the star of the demo day. It attracted many people to come and ask us about the robot, and many commented it was the best-looking and the best-made robot shown on the day.

Auto Carrier Vehicle

We needed an auto carrier vehicle to receive items from the hexapod, automatically detect that it has received the items, and then transport and dispense the items at target locations.

Final product

This ACV uses four sensors. Two sensors at the front for a double PID-controlling line follower program. A color sensor at the bottom to detect the colored lines on the venue. And, an ultrasonic sensor at the top (hidden inside the hole on the top of the ACV) for detecting the arrival of the hexapod's robotic arm.

The ACV runs four laps. At the beginning of each lap, it would stay idle at the start and wait for the hexapod's arrival. Once the ultrasonic sensor detects that the hexapod has handed over the items, it will begin running its program for the lap.

Our ACV is not the fastest. However, it is one of the most stable. Having a sturdy mechanical structure, extremely average center of mass, and a robust 4-link mechanism dispenser, it is a great build overall — even my professor came and took a picture.

Venue for the ACV

Simplified layout of the venue

There are four target locations and a starting location that the ACV idles at. Once the hexapod triggers the ultrasonic sensor, it begins its program for the respective lap.

Program for the ACV

Our main program

The LabVIEW program of our ACV contains multiple Sub VIs (child program). The picture above is the main program. Since we have many variables that require constant testing, I specifically made it easy for us to edit the values in the main program.

Special Program

A snapshot of the starting interface

Since it is possible that our ACV does not deliver successfully and requires a reboot, I designed a program and interface that allows us to reset and designate the target locations for each lap quickly.

Logo Design

My team and I had many crazy ideas early in the semester. One of them is a logo for ourselves.

The logo comprises three pairs of C and L. The six letters represent the initials of our member's family names. The way the logo loops and interconnects implies a hope for us to have fluid teamwork.

Variants of our logo

Poster

We also made a poster for the demo day. I was in charge of our poster design.

I am proud to share that we received The Best Poster award.

You may notice the QR code at the bottom. Check it out if you have time!

Our award-winning poster

Demo Day

The professor of the project course holds a demo day event every year. Where groups can compete again (it is separate from the test day).

It was the day we shined.

Picture of our booth

The demo day concludes the course. We had an award ceremony.

We were honored to receive three awards: two Awards given by visiting companies on the day and one Award for The Best Poster.

Picture of us receiving awards

Video

I also made a simple video recording our robots in action.

Our two robots in action

Startup

My team and I thought it would be a good idea to extend the project further to begin a startup revolving around our extraordinary hexapod. We joined a startup program held by my school, specifically by the NCKU Innovation Headquarters, where they generously fund and provide us with mentoring support.

Proof of us being funded

The startup is lowkey still running.