User:Dammy125/enes100/Helicopter 3

Link to project Helicopter 3 team page.

Give instructor top 3 project choice list
I decided to stay with the helicopter project

Write problem statement
Which motor would go well with the helicopter and arduino

Assign Task1
Do research on different types of motors and see if the ones at the school would work properly.

Compare actual work done to Task1
I planned on doing the research on motors and any current motors that would work better.I did lots of work on uploading all the old group files to wikiversity. I checked the advantages of each motor.

Week1 Narrative
For this week my job was to upload pictures and do research about different motors we can use for the helpful.



Week1 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task2
I plan on looking at the motors at the school and see how useful it could be to us. Also I'm going to compare a couple of them to the ones i just researched about.

Compare actual work done to Task2
Rationalize differences

Week2 Narrative
Upload photos to wikimedia. Upload video to youtube. Convert all spreadsheets, documents, and presentations to wiki format and create wiki subpage of your page for each of them. Link to them here in a narrative that tells a story. High light the problems (engineering problems) you had and how you solved them.

Week2 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:32, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task3
Record what you are planning on doing for the team during the weekend between week2 and week3 of the project here.

Compare actual work done to Task3
This week I continued my work for the tutorial on how to work the arduino for the helicopter and i made sure that we are doing everyting properly.

Week3 Narrative
First you download |944l3|526933304|AFMotor.rar|6|R~D7E9166CDDFC24E3D4BA8A3905932087|0|0 AFMotor library from http://www.ladyada.net/make/mshield/download.html, where you can also download Arduino Stepper/Servo software library with microstepping support and AccelStepper library with AFMotor support.

Before you canstart using the AFMotor library,its better to know what the library is used for,how to install it, and how it works.

Arduino Hacks: Libraries.This is basically a manual on how to use the manuals

Jeremy Blum's video guide. This is a video guide, in which Jeremy explains and talks about NPN Transistor and PWM, which allows to run a motor faster through arduino. He also talks about using the different motor libraries, and writing appropriate sketches when using different motors, such as DC-motors, survo and stepping motors.

Motor Shield. This tutorial includes powering the DC motors, voltage and current requirements for the first section. The second section is about how to set up the arduino and the motor control shield for powering motors, and the remaining sections cover Survos, DC-motors, and Steppers. The last two sections include step by step directions on how to run the motors using the sketches they have provided. I have tested those sketches and they seem to work very well.

Note: if you were to download the AFMotor library I have provided. Follow these steps:

1) Download and extract the files onto your Desktop.

2) Copy the AFMotor folder and paste it into your existing folder: Arduino-0022/libraries/

Now, you can easily import the library by going to Sketch > Import library > AFMotor. You can also import the motor sketches by going to File > Examples > AFMotor

I am currently working with six devices, including Arduino-UNO, the breadboard, motor control shield, DC-motors, stepping motors, and AC power adapter for arduino. Here's the overall picture of how I connected the Arduino UNO, the motor control shield and the DC-motor.

There're two ways you can change the directions in which the motors spin. One way is to write a sketch that spins the DC-motors either only in "FORWARD" or "BACKWARD" direction. Another way is to change the order of the wires connected to the ports of the motor control shield (I mentioned about it in My Video). This basically means the motors would start spinning by the time we plug the wires into the ports (M3 & M4) and stops when taking out of the ports. If I want to run the motors in "FORWARD" direction, I would delete the parts which I don't need, including the variables "BACKWARD (reverse)," and "RELEASE (stop)." I used the yellow and red LEDs to test whether the M3 and M4 are both working at the same time or not.

Week3 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Assign Task4
I plan on keep doing steps for the arduino

Compare actual work done to Task4
Continued with my arduino tutorial

Week4 Narrative
For this task, I didn't have to download anything since I already have everything I needed from the previous tasks. I had the Stepper librarary which was included in the AFmotor library. For this week I've been working with the arduino, motor control shield, whitebread board, and the DC motors. Now it's the time to learn about the Accelerometer ADXL335 and the stepping motor. Here are some links to guides and basic explanation of each guide.

Analog Devices: This is s very important guides, it explains everything you need to know about the Accelerometer ADXL335. The link goes through general description of the accelerometer, functional block diagram, specifications, Pin configuration and function description, typical performance characteristics, Mechanical Sensor, Applications information (such as Power Suply Decoupling, Self-Test, Setting the Bandwidth using CX, CY, and CZ), Axes of Acceleration Sensitivity, and Outline its three dimensions (X,Y, and Z). Motor Shield (stepper): This is a guide to learn about stepper motor. It explains how Bi-polar steppers are different from Uni-polar steppers and their differences in writing sketches. There's also a picture of a Bi-polar stepper (4 wires). It also provides a Test-Sketch for it.

Circuit for Bipolar Stepper Motor: This is a diagram of how Bi-polar steppers are different from two pins to four pins.

Circuits for Unipolar Stepper Motors: This is a diagram of how Unipolar steppers are different from two pins to four pins.

Driving a Unipolar Stepper Motor: This tutorial shows how to write a sketch for Unipolar Stepper and run it.

The main difference between DC motors and steppers is that the motor control shield can drive up to 4 DC motors bi-directionally, where as it supports only up to 2 stepper motors. Running a stepper is a little more intricate than running a DC motor. I already have a sketch for running 4 DC motors at once, and now I'm interested in running a stepper motor with 3 DC motors. Here's the list of devices I used for this task:

Arduino UNO

Accelerometer ADXL335

Motor Control Shield

Prototype with Whitebread board

Three DC motors

One Stepping motor

Week4 Peer Review
Go to each team mates weekly summary wiki page. Read their activities and narrative. Then go the associated discussion page. Say something positive on this page. Try some constructive criticism. Add your name and 1sfoerster 13:33, 28 August 2011 (UTC) to create a time and date stamp. Create a new category if another team mate has already commented here.

Complete Project Page
Follow the "project done" format.

Start Next Project Week0 activities
During this week you will perform the week0 activities of the next project.