As I just wrote on the THOR project page, Robot Overlord now supports inverse and forward kinematics for the THOR robot. One by one they all fall under my dominion! MwahahahHAHAHAHAHhahahaha…..aha…
As part of filming the Kickstarter video a team member suggested a video of putting two pieces together via robot. Of course! So we got down to it… and it was the most nail-biting thrill I’ve had all day. First try was close, second was on the money but didn’t press in, and third pressed it into place. Phew!
…ok, I tried to make a GIF of the action and it came out at 560mb. Something new to learn.
Second challenge, the pump is not letting go just like my ex even though I run it in reverse. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong there, it’s probably a software mistake.
Fixed! The pump can’t run in reverse, so I bought a normally-closed solenoid air valve from STCValve.com.
The first time we tried to fire the solenoid was directly from the AMS1 shield motor connection #3, which killed the Arduino. It no longer gives a USB device descriptor. The solenoid says it runs at 12v1.67a and the AMS1 shield says it can handle peak 2a, so not sure what happened.
The AMS1 shield has a servo connection on pins 9 and 10. Rather than using it for PWM, we send the pin 10 signal to a breakout relay which fires the solenoid for ~1000ms and lets enough air into the system to release the piece being held.
So now we can testably lift, move, rotate, and drop pieces from Twitch. I’d say we’re ready to give this a go. Now for the really challenging part: building a successful kickstarter campaign. Help?
