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Drawbot.png

POLARBEAR

Class: Design and Prototyping

Year: Spring 2017

GOAL: create a robot that can trace a closed path inside a given triangular area.

Instead of a traditional XY-axis plotter, we chose to create a plotter that works in polar coordinates. The drawbot uses two stepper motors: one to control the angle of the arm, and another to control the length using a rack-and-pinion mechanism.

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Using an Arduino, it was impossible to run both steppers simultaneously using the built-in library, so instead our motors ran in sequence. This meant that we had to approximate straight lines using increments of angle and length, resulting in a jagged appearance.

VIDEO

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