The Build: Materials

The last few weeks, this week, and next week, I am preparing for Winter Break. Over Winter Break is when I will start building the mechanism and the arm itself. Last week I was getting organized with what I would need, including figuring out how much metal I will need, and how thick the metal should be. This week, I have purchased some of the materials that I need and I know where I can purchase the other materials and am ready to buy them as soon as I can.  Currently I have purchased the design that I will use for the shell, and a pair of gloves needed for the shell as well. The materials I have not purchased yet are the metal sheets for the shell, and other metal parts, an electric vacuum, and a battery all for the actual mechanism. These parts, however, I know where I can purchase them, and will likely do it this weekend.

*The picture is of the specific gloves that I purchased, and can be found at the following link: http://www.copsplus.com/1215_hatch_sg20p.html?gclid=CIGgyOfW-7oCFUMV7AodB18AMg

The Build: Organization

This week, and the next couple weeks I will be setting myself up for Winter Break. During Winter Break I will start building my mechanism and the shell. This week I have been organizing what tools I need to build my arm, what tools I do and do not have so that I can buy the ones I don't have, what and how much of the materials I need, and how much it will all cost. During the week I have found that a lot of the tools that I need I have access to through my mother. She is an artist and has many basic tools in her studio that I will be able to use. Her studio, however, does not have all the tools that I need. For shaping the metal I need an anvil, but anvils are very expensive so I searched for an alternative. I found that I do not need an anvil if I have a flat topped hammer and a ball peen hammer, I can use them as replacements for the rounded and flattened sides of a forging anvil.


*The picture was taken by me during a YouTube video by David Guyton explaining the different tools that he uses while shaping metal.

Working Toward My Iron Roots

As I continue to design my mechanism, I have decided that having a "shell," so to speak, to encase the mechanism would make it both more legitimate as a robotic arm, and make it more worth wearing.

During the week I have been searching online for ways of building a "shell" for my arm that would be form fitting and mobile. While searching I found a website made by David J. Guyton who sells "easy" make designs for different gauntlets. This is exactly what I have been looking for, so I plan to build this shell, most likely over winter break.

Building the "shell" I feel should be done as fast as possible because it has a specific design, and it would be easier to fit the mechanism to the case, then the case to the mechanism.

I haven't decided which design to use for my project yet, so it could be either of the two designs seen in the pictures.

*The photos were taken as screenshots during two YouTube videos by David Guyton. Here is the link to his website if you're curious. http://www.davidjguyton.com/gauntlettemplate.htm

Confirmed Mentor

The other day I received a confirmation from the person, my brother, who I asked to be my Mentor. I now have a Mentor for my project, however, since he currently is in college, he cannot help in person very often, and has small windows of time when I will be able to discuss with him the design and wiring of the project, as well as problem solving and physically helping me with the building process, maybe. Because he is sparse on time, in his confirmation letter, he gave me tips for working on the project when he doesn’t have time to talk as well as how to schedule times for us to discuss the project. He told me that I should be flexible if something goes wrong with the project early, and that I should have multiple designs to try, to find the one that works the best and is easiest to build, to minimize malfunctions. As well he told me to focus on my timeline, so that I can be as organized as possible.

Found A Mentor

For the last few weeks I have been looking for a mentor for my project. The mentor was hopefully going to be someone who is more experienced, in the fields that my project covers, than I am. This would allow my project to progress to a new level because my limitations would not be the limitations of the project, and I would be able to do and learn much more throughout the year. In my search I believe that I found the best candidate for my mentor. My brother I feel would be the most helpful person I could have for my mentor. Partially because he is my brother and therefore much more accessible, and I am much more open in conversation with him. Another reason is that my brother is an engineer who builds robots, and he has taught kids how to build robots. This I feel would be very beneficial to me because he would be able to help me design and build my robotic parts because it is what he does, and because he already has experience in teaching/helping kids problem solve.

Finding A Mentor

For our project, one of the things we are supposed to do is find a mentor. Our mentor is supposed to be able to help us answer questions about our project and help us problem solve the issues that come up during the year. My project involves the designing, building, and wiring of a robotic arm. For this reason I would hopefully get a mentor that understands engineering enough to be able to help me with mainly the design process and the wiring process, but not the building process as much because Tech Shop, the place I intend to build it at, has many people willing to help with my project. As well as someone who knows a lot about engineering, it would also be helpful if that person was very knowledgeable about human biology. This is because, since my project is a mechanism that is supposed to imitate the motions of a human arm, and mine specifically, it would be helpful to have someone who is knowledgeable about the motions of a human arm, and why it moves in the way it does.

Variables: The Piston

This week I started working with the design of my piston again and drew up some more variables for when I actually start measuring the dimensions of the parts. The drawing uses both, the variables that I used in last weeks diagram with added new ones, so, for this reason, I am re-uploading the picture from last week so that it will be easier to refer to both at the same time.

The dimensions from last weeks picture used in this diagram are x and z, where x is the length of the individual segments of the piston, and z is the number of segments in the piston. These are used in combination with a new variable r, which is the radius of the first segment, and q, which is the distance between segments, to find the radius of the last segment. As seen in the diagram, when moving to the next segment, the radius is reduced by two times that of q, the distance between segments. Therefore the radius of the last segment is the radius of the first with two times q times the number of segments, z, minus 1.

First Steps: Variable Measurements

Before I can start building the parts to my mechanism, I need to know what parts I need, how many I need, and their dimensions. So this week I have been thinking about the relative dimensions of the parts for my mechanism. By this I mean that the dimensions are variables, and therefore, it does not change what the equation for the other dimensions are, if the actual dimensions change.

These dimensions are needed to find z, which in this diagram, is the number of segments in the piston. This is important information to know early because the different parts all need to fit into one another, meaning that all the pieces are consecutively smaller than the last piece. Knowing the number of pieces needed to build the piston will tell me how wide the radius will be for the largest and smallest pieces, and then all the ones in between.

First Steps: Doubling Up + Tech Shop

During the night I realized something important about my design. As a test, the arm should be able to allow me with ease to lift myself on a bar with that one arm. Because of how one’s arm moves to lift oneself while doing a pull-up, I have made the observation that I will need to double up and have two pistons per arm, not one.

This picture is of my arm before and after lifting myself for a pull-up. As one can see, my bicep and my forearm are not the only muscles that pull closer to each other in my pull-up; my tricep is also pulled closer to my side. Therefore by using two pistons I can minimize the stress on the users muscles, as it gives support to both groups of muscles that are working during the pull-up.

On a side note, I have recently visited a place known as Tech Shop. Tech Shop is an organization where one can pay for a membership and have access to a wide variety of machines and parts needed to build projects like my own; however, their building that is closest to me is closing down, and it will take a few weeks for them to find a new plot for their building. This will hinder my ability to actually build my arm, but I can spend more time on the design of my arm and work on the design of my supports and testing instruments.

First Steps: Spyglass Piston

I think I found both a cooler and a sturdier idea instead of String.
I call it a spyglass piston. It is similar to the spyglass telescope, that is used in many pirate films, because it collapses into a small cylinder, but can be fully extended to most of the length of my arm (hopefully). It works using progressively smaller hollow cylinders of metal, connected with rubber stoppers attached to the individual pieces. They are progressively smaller because it would allow all of the pieces to fit inside each other, so that when they are compressed, it is the length of the largest piece, and when they are fully extended, it is the length of all of the piece’s lengths added up. The rubber stoppers would be glued, probably with industrial glue, to the ends of the cylinders because the rubber would be able to stop the air from leaving or entering the piston. Each rubber stopper would be attached to only one side of one metal cylinder. Each cylinder would have two stoppers and one would be on the inside while the other is on the outside of the cylinder.

First Steps: Drawing String

As my first step towards becoming Iron Man, I have started brainstorming designs for the arm. More precisely, I have been brainstorming designs for how the mechanism will move my arm. The designs had been popping up in my head quickly at random times during the last week, so I had to scratch them down on paper as fast as I could so that I would not forget them. A downside to this is that the designs are drawn very poorly and do not give much information at all. My first thoughts about how the mechanism should pull the arm is, as shown in the top left of the picture, is that a string would be attached to a piston on the back and have it loop down the arm to be attached at the end. I found immediately that this idea was a problem because since the string covers the same length of the arm, because of the loop at the elbow, when the piston pulls the string, it will not pull the arm together.As a way to fix this, I drew up the next design (top right), which has only one loop, instead of two. This would allow for the string to pull the arm together; however, the next design (bottom right) would allow for a shorter length of string, more effectively pulling the arm together.String seems overrated, so I am currently thinking up new designs using sturdier materials. See you in my next post!