SME Robot Kit

Sponsors: Bojo Inc. and TerraLuna LLC

Scope

Iteratively develop a kit of inexpensive laser-cut plastic robot parts, adding COTS servos, controllers, and sensors, for use in small and medium enterprise light manufacturing automation projects. Develop and demonstrate sample applications for the kit. Work with sponsor and other teams to develop applications, and to establish an open-source community for future growth of the project.

This team is a potential vendor for the Cable Assembly Robot and SME Robot Arm teams, and will be evaluated in part by its ability to supply interim and final products and support to those teams.

This team is a potential customer of the Linux-based Automation Controller, and will be evaluated in part by its ability respond to the supply-chain issues this dependency will produce.

Objectives

Design kit for LEGO-like ease of use; minimal use of tools, rapid assembly and rework.

Design kit to handle typical material sizes ranging from centimeters down to MEMS scale.

Make extensive use of rapid-protoyping techniques, solid modeling and simulation, and high-level scripting languages.

Make extensive use of COTS components such as R/C servos.

Use a general-purpose set of Linux-based software and hardware for data acquisition and motion control, with scripting in Python for application-specific customization.

Use the sponsor-provided project management site (http://t7a.org) for documentation, file storage, status, and issue tracking.

Industry sponsors will provide access to lab including laser cutter, solid modeling workstations, EDM and other machine tools, pneumatic and electromechanical components, project management and mentoring, and computing infrastructure support.

Deliverables

Solid models of all parts, servos, and other mechanical elements.

Source code of any software developed for the project.

Early release of a subset of the kit for use by the Cable Assembly Robot and SME Robot Arm teams, followup releases as needed.

Demonstrate two sample applications of the kit; the applications must be useful in industry, able to produce a 3-month return on a typical users' investment in the kit. Show financials. These sample applications can simply replicate the SME Robot Arm or Cable Assembly Robot team results, with financials added.

Two complete and identical kits, in carrying case, with documentation, as if for sale, including notes and assembly guides for the two sample applications.