Monday, April 4, 2016

Week 12: 04/04/2016 - 04/08/2016
Haowen
    1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.
Fig.1 Circuit of Haowen's Rb

    2. Explain your setup.
         At first, I used a solar panel as the trigger of my circuit. Through some measurement I found the solar panel would generate a 200mV DC voltage. Then I connected it to an amplifier so that I could control a relay. When the other circuit powered by 5V voltage, four 7-segment display would show a word "COOL". At the same time, 555 timer would generate a clock. Through binary coded decimal counter and display driver, the remain 7-segment display would start counting numbers. I want to use an or gate and a motor at last. The motor would spin when the number is from 4 to 9. Next I would connect this motor to a paper mouse which could trigger a mouse-trap.

    3. Provide photos of the circuit and setup.
Photo.1 Circuit of Haowen's RB
Photo. 2 Voltage generated by solar panel and then amplified by OPAMP

     4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action, one being a failed attempt.


Video 1 Failed attemt

Vedio 2 Part of Haowen's RB


     5.  What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?
           The first time I did not use the relay to control the circuit. I wanted to use the voltage generated by solar panel support the whole circuit. It was easy to get a 5 volts voltage, however, when I connected this voltage to the remain circuit directly, the voltage would decrease into 2 volts. And if I used the power supply to replace this voltage, all things works well.
              So I increased the gain of amplifier and got a 7 volts voltage which I could use to control the relay. When the circuit was working, the power supply would offer the input of the circuit. 


Adam

1. Provide the computer drawing for your individual RG setup.
Picture 1 below is the picture for my individual RG setup.
Picture 1: This is Adam's Rube Goldberg set up.


2. Explain your setup.
My Rube Goldberg machine is a fairly simple set up. I have a voltage source that is going to a pressure sensor and then to a relay switch. When the pressure sensor has enough pressure on it, it will cause the relay switch to change which pin is its output. When this happens the LED light will turn off and the motor will spin. The motor will knock over a series of dominos that will trigger the next Rube Goldberg machine.

3. Provide photos of the circuit and the set up.

Picture 2 shows a photo of my circuit below, however, it is incomplete. I do not yet have the dominoes set up to trigger the next circuit.

Picture 2: This is a setup of my circuit.


4. Provide at least 2 videos of your setup in action, one being a failed attempt.
Videos of my circuit are below. The first one shows a "successful" run of my set up. While I do not have the transitions yet, the circuit is working as is should be. The second video does not work as intended. I did not ground the motor in the second video and so I did not complete the circuit to get voltage.



Video 1: This is my "successful" Rube Goldberg attempt.

5. What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?
I had many failures while working on my circuit. One of them being unable to trigger my circuit. I originally planned for a strain gauge to be used to trigger my circuit but was unable to get a large enough output from it. I also had issues with my circuitry being too complicated. I had to simplify my circuit down from previous ideas because I could not create a circuit that was able to work with the transitions between groups.
5.
What failures did you have? How did you overcome them?

15 comments:

  1. Adam: Your circuit is too similar to one of our labs and not creative enough. You would lose significant credit from your demo (not from this blog entry).
    Adam and Haowen: Your drawings are not explanatory enough. -2

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you can do more with your Rube Goldberg. Maybe since you have a basic layout already, you could try doing a cool physical feature of it besides a basic domino effect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'll work on adding more components, my original idea was not working out so I had to make a new circuit very quickly to post to the blog.

      Delete
  3. Haowen I like your setup, displaying 'Cool' was a good idea.

    Adam I like your setup, it's simple and it will work every time. But I believe it maybe too simple.

    -Matt

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I plan on adding a bit more to the circuit. I had to go through a few failed ideas before I went to something more simple. Thank you. - Adam

      Delete
  4. Haowen: Using 7-segment display to show "cool" instead of displaying numbers is a creative idea, i like it! Your circuit looks like a good combination of what we did this semester. Good job!

    Adam: Your RB set up looks simple but staple, and maybe you can add more new elements to your RB setup.

    -Yao

    ReplyDelete
  5. Haowen

    I Like the your use of the Multiple Displays.
    I had similar issues with the solar panels in my circuit. Did you have any issues with the foil leads on your solar panels, they gave me a lot of trouble on my circuit. Also what will the mouse trap do to trigger the next circuit? Will it Trip a switch/sensor or possibly set another object into motion?

    KP

    ReplyDelete
  6. Haowen,
    I like that your 7 segment display displays the word "COOL". Did you determine how to light up "C" and "L" by trial and error? That's also nice that the motor only works during a certain period of time. Great idea.

    Both of you: Since my group is following yours, which circuit do you intend on ending with? For some reason, we thought you were ending with an LED. Anything's fine. Just curious!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haowen's circuit will be the one connecting to your groups, currently he plans on using a motor to push or pull to activate your circuit. Ask if he can adjust to a LED during class! - Adam

      Delete
  7. Also Haowen,
    I may be misinterpreting this but is "COOL" on the 7 segment displays and the 555 timer (along with its display on the other 7 segment display) happening at the same time? The relay shorts one pin (of 3 and 4) at a time, so how do you intend on doing this?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Adam I like your simple setup but I think it is too simple and you may want to add more to the circuit to get the full ten seconds.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Haowen I think you have a very creative setup and use more than enough of the recommended components for this lab. Also, displaying cool is a great idea!

    ReplyDelete