Tasked with designing the tilting hopper of the robot my team and I started sketching out a variety of different mechanism and designs. Since extra points would be given to more complex designs we combined a couple of different ideas into one mechanism to achieve a scissor lift design with a sliding rail and driven by a rack and pinion.

A sketch of our mechanism

Our installed mechanism providing the motion to rotate the hopper

Foreseeing a potential lack of torque output from the stepper motor we designed a system that would allow up to effectively use rubber bands to linearize the required torque output as to put less strain on the motor. After finding the sweet spot for the force required for the rubber bands we were able to operate to hopper with the minimal torque coming from the stepper motor.

Our completed mechanism being run by hand

Our completed mechanism being run by hand

This project taught us how to collaborate as a team and think creatively to come up with a unique solution to a design problem. It also allowed us to gain experience with designing mechanisms and working with different components to create a functional prototype.