Ramp Design

       Here's the design of the ramp in two different styles: 3D printed style and 2D laser cut style. The two dimensional laser cut piece needed to be designed due to time issues with the 3D printer. The downfalls of the 2D part are there are less features, more parts and a permanent thickness to the pieces. Both pieces are under the 4 cubic inch requirement (around 1.8 to 2.5 inches squared respectively). 

 3D Ramp style (1 piece)

2D style piece (3 pieces)

Final Build Product

Here's some images showing the final build. The 3D printed ramp of the lift is still missing because time ran out but a piece of cardboard holds it's place. We're running two Arduino boards one is just supplying 5 volts to both servos and the other one has all the code and buttons on it

 Side View

Top View

 



 Top View

 Side view with cardboard ramp

Finalized code

Here's the finalized code that contains an LCD screen, 2 potentiometers, and a button.



  The LCD screen is having some problems but it should be fine by tomorrows presentation.

Here's the wire diagram setup.

This was created using the Fritzing program.

Week 11/25/13 Overview

Attendance: Brandon Herrick, Patrick Andersen, Mark Aruda, Thomas McSwiggin

Dates:    11/23/13           11/25/13
Hours total: 6 hours

Description: Solid works parts to be drafted and assembly.

    First shipment of parts were delivered today still waiting for the servo motor and second shipment of Lego pieces. Some preliminary assembly can be setup, but not the majority. The solid works parts were found from some of the Lego libraries provided by Professor Sullivan.

Parts list:

Wheel Chair Lift Parts List
Quantity	Part name
6	15 hole Lego beam
2	1x4 thin lift arm
2	1x9 bent lift arm (6-4)
1	10 axle
2	8 axle
20	connector pins
4	half  bushings
2	20 tooth gear
2	1x16 hole brick
6	axle sleeves
1	8 tooth gear
6	1x3 hole brick
2	thin triangle Legos

Solid Works Parts/Files:

                                                             15 Hole Lego Beam

                                                                  Axle size 10

                                                                 1 x 9 bent Lego

                                                                     Connector Pin

8 Tooth Gear

                                                                      20 Tooth Gear

                                                                 1 x 16 Hole Brick

                                                                    1/2 Bushing

The assembly will be coming soon.

Week of 11/18/13 Overview

Attendance: Brandon Herrick, Mark Aruda, Patrick Andersen, Thomas McSwiggin

Day of meetings: 11/19 and 11/20

Topics Discussed: Parts list and ordering and redesigning on the parts we have.

      The Parts that we will be using will be mostly Lego parts from select websites. Other parts like the platform and the base may need to be 3D printed.
     So far no redesigning is needed, but during the building process this will probably change. Some Solid works models were drawn up by Patrick and Brandon. Mark tidied up the code while Thomas ran the blog site and brainstormed on part ideas.

Here are some of the initial parts/ assembly created:

Code For the System

This is the initial draft of the Arduino code for the project design. The LCD screen has yet to be added and also some extra code may be plugged in depending on the time we have.

 https://gist.github.com/maruda95/7552561

Design summary

Group Members: Thomas McSwiggin, Brandon Herrick, Mark Aruda, Pat Anderson

Summary of this week's progress:
Our whole group met on Tuesday 11/12 to finalize our design, make a list of necessary parts, and write our code

     The project that we're working on is an elevated handicap lift that you see on most transportation busses. These lifts can span a height of 4 to 5 feet where ours will span maybe 2 to 3 inches. They're run on a two bar system that keeps the ramp level at any height. Usually this two bar system is run by hydraulics, but for our project we're using high torque servo motors. The ramp will be retractable so it will be able to fit in small spaces.

The parts that we'll be using are:

                                  2 decent servo motors that have 180 degree turning radius

                                  4 Long Lego Shafts (haven't decided size yet we'll figure that out in  drafting)

                                  2 offset Lego pieces ( Around 20 degree bend)

                                  2 brackets made from the 2D laser cut out

                                  1 platform made from 3D laser printer

                                  10 Lego connector pieces

                                  2 Different sized gears (small to big = torque ) 

                                  1 External Battery (may need to run two servos smoothly ?)

                                  (Optional):   1 Nicer potentiometer  and 1 Nicer push button 

The code outline is as follows:
         The potentiometer will control the main double arms from going up and down so one servo will need to be mapped to this and this servo will have the gears attached to it so it may not even need the full 180 degree rotation. The push button should control the ramp from going up and down so a Boolean call will be sufficient for this, the servo will probably go 90 degrees. A button de-bounce will be needed. A green and red/yellow LED will be used to indicate whether the ramp is fully down or fully up (green for go) otherwise if the ramp is not in those two positions the red/yellow LED should be lit. I'm not sure at this point if we need to use the LCD screen, but well worry about that later.

The code will be posted later on when we figure out GitHub.





A drafted picture (Figure 1) and a legitimate picture (Figure 2) can be seen below.

Figure 1. Quick sketch of design

 

Figure 2. Real version of the lift