Explore the stepper motor
Step 1 Build the circuit
This was the easy part. The schematic provided in the instruction was clear so I built the circuit fast and well.
Step 2 Control rotation with a potentiometer
One problem occurred in this part. Roger and I found that the stepper motor tended to rotate a lot when we adjusted the potentiometer even by a little bit.
We consulted one of the assistants and learnt that we needed to map the input data from the potentiometer into a proper range for the stepper motor.
This is how the stepper motor work after adjusting the code.
Step 3 Build a drawing machine
This part was much more fun. Roger and I connected the legs and the stepper motors to prepare them for the drawing. We tried several ways to draw a ‘perfect pattern’ but failed. In the end, we created this ‘not so perfect but good looking’ pattern.
Questions
Question 1
I want to build a machine that’ll help me choose what to wear every day. I have great trouble choosing what to wear. This machine will save me the time to figure out which clothes look good with which pair of pants and what clothes are proper to wear to what occasion. It will be connected to the Internet and get the weather report online. It knows my preference and will make me look good.
Question 2
The Drumming and Drawing Subhuman project made me realize that human is the core of almost all of our projects. This project hopes to play the drum like humans. The drawing machine we built this recitation is mimicking human’s drawing movement. It is the same when selecting actuators. We all chose those actuators that are the most similar to how human bones would work.