final project: cad

This week I started to flesh out more of the CAD for my final project. At the beginning of the course when I was still learning CAD, I made a model of my final project. However, this model wasn’t very parametric, as I tried changing some of the parameters I assigned and the entire model got extremely messed up. Therefore, I took this opportunity to re-design my CAD model with Fusion 360 for my final project.

After some additional conversations with the TAs and my section instructor, I knew my device had to be hollow, yet parameterized to fit in the different components of my device. I don’t know how large the camera is, or how large my launching device will be, so it’s critical that my CAD is very parameterizable. I also added a lid that would fit snuggly into the base of my device. Below are some images of my CAD. The dimensions are off, but can easily be changed when I have more information on the dimensions of the components.

I have also been thinking about how I will trigger my treat launcher to launch treats. During the embedded systems week we had to read a datasheet, and I chose to read the ESP32 datasheet since that was the processor I was going to use for this project. I learned that the ESP32 has built-in Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities which is perfect for my use case. This would be especially useful for my remote. Instead of having a single physical remote that could only be used by one individual, I thought it would be more useful/cool to make an application on my phone or a website where anyone in my family could connect to the device via Bluetooth and send treats with the click of a button.

I watched this video of someone connecting their ESP32 with Arduino to a phone to turn on and off an LED. My use case seemed very similar as I would only have two buttons -- one to make a sound to alert my dog and another to actually launch the treats. I also found this great article of how someone made a web app to communicate with the ESP32 via Bluetooth. This however won’t be mission-critical, as I don’t need shop access to make this application. I’m planning on doing additional research next week about how I can create the launcher with the materials given. I’m also going to look into ways to implement the dropper. Lastly, I’ll still need to create the housings for each of my components in my housing once I complete that task.

Time is flying by and we are just weeks away from losing our on-campus access. I figured I’d make a plan along with priorities to make sure that I was staying on track.

1. Do research on ways to implement a slingshot (I am planning on making my assignment for the outputs week to be this launcher) -- Top priority
2. Do research on ways to implement a mechanism to drop treats -- Second most urgent task
3. Refine housing and create housing for my other component. This must wait until the launcher and dropping mechanism is complete.
4. Making the remote to trigger the launcher. -- least urgent, I don’t need campus access to do this.