This week, the assignment was to build some manner of a multi-axis machine. Someone within section suggested building a multi-axis photography rig, and we decided upon that idea. The entire section for the class was split into teams, each with their own Slack channel for communicating: design, assembly, hardware, and coding.
I chose to be on the design team. Initially, the design team communicated our thoughts of how the system would be set up: the camera would be coupled to a stepper motor (allowing rotation), then that system would mounted to a stepper motor controlled track (for linear motion). Luckily, we found a kit that had been previously designed and made in the class, so we really only had to design the camera mount (and it's attachments) from scratch.
I was specifically in charge of the interface between the two axis. After dicsussing with the assebmly team and one person in the class who had already assembled the axis we had on hand, we decided our time would be most efficiently spent not rebuilding the entire thing. So, I designed a simple set of wooden blocks so that the rotational axis (held together by a newly designed 3D printed block) could simply be attached to the linear axis that was on-hand. This allowed the assembly team to merely drill some holes and cut out some woood blocks rather than remaking an entire track again from scratch. However, apparently a mounting rack was later discovered that was part of the original design of the track, and it was conviniently used instead at a later time.
The full documentation for this project can be found
here (the project manager's website).
