User:MTomaselli/ENES-100/Pet Food Controller (continued)

Week 4 Narrative
This week I started out with a plan to 3D print my with hopes in connecting it to my servo and moving forward, things changed. The 3D printer was having technical difficulties this week, which seemed to be due to height between the build plate and nozzle of extraction. I could not waste any more time troubleshooting the MakerBot or even refining my arm attachment design. With a bit of quick thinking and knowing my resources; plywood, jigsaw, and a drill press came into my mind. The plywood would be almost an exact replacement to the PLA that we use in class in terms of strength and durability. The jigsaw would provide an easy way of cutting out my attachment with precise measurements and smooth rounded corners. While lastly, the drill press would be a simple way a drilling out screw holes to the exact size that I need to attach to the servo and to the rotary screw feeder. With this task set in motion, I first needed to dimension out my new plywood servo arm attachment by utilizing my already dimensioned attachment on SketchUp. With some new modifications, for stability, I dimensioned out my new attachment and began to transfer these to a piece of plywood.

Week 5 Narrative
Week 2 was a week for coding. With the servo attachment cut out and ready for implementation, it was time to write the code that would turn the servo 180°, wait approximately 10 seconds to fully dispense the food, and lastly turn back to 0° back and ready to refill with food. I did not need to perform much research due to the ease of the code but after looking at Hobby Tronics I was able to see exactly what Arduino library I needed to include. I took this information and after a couple of trial runs I had my code functional and Servo operating at the exact angles I neeeded. Once I successfully completed this task I needed to push forward and begin writing the code for the RFID Reader and Tags, which will ultimately be the "brains" behind the Pet Food Controller. The problem that I had to tackle was that I needed the RFID tags unique identifier. These unique ID numbers are what will allow me the grant access to specific pets while denying the others access to food. This wasn't too challenging to complete, all I needed to do was write a buffer that would read my RFID tags and display their unique identifier on the serial monitor. Once I successfully completed this code I was able to obtain all four of the tag's unique identifiers.

Week 6 Narrative
This week I continued coding the RFID reader but this time my focus was rested in coupling the servo rotation and the rotary screw feeder. My first step was too sit down and think about the logistics of the project as a whole. What I came up with was:

By looking at the flow chart of what I needed my code to accomplish I knew that it was going to be much more challenging than I had anticipated. I would not let this did not stop me for one minute so I began tackling this code. After a few hours and couple of different attempts I had to lay the code and move onto completing the rest of the project I was tasked with, specifically building the rotary screw feeder housing and mounting the servo and Arduino. Originally I had planned to use the MakerBot and 3D print this housing as well as the rotary screw feeder. Due to some minor altercations with the MakerBot I needed to change my approach and design the housing out of wood. The first thing I needed to do was take the dimensions from my SketchUp model in order to maintain accordance with my original design. What I came up with was a 6"x6"x6" cube that would have a 4.5" circular cutout for a 4" piece of PVC pipe that acts as a funnel to transport the food from the dispenser to the bowl. Once I had my dimensions ready I set out to Engineering Materials Room to find the wood that I would use to create the housing. I knew that I didn't want to use a 2x4 because I would not get the proper lengths I needed out of a single piece. With that in mind I decided to go with 3/8" Plywood, not only to satisfy my dimensional restraints but I knew that I would get the adequate strength in which I desired. The first issue that I ran into was that the available Jigsaw was not large enough the handle the piece of plywood I chose. So I had to roughly cut off all of the scrap wood I wasn't going to use in order to make the precise cuts I needed. Once I cut out all 4 sides of the housing I noticed that my edges were not very straight so I decided to use the Table Saw to assure I would have even edges that would ultimately match up and nail together. A 3/8" thick piece of plywood is very difficult to nail into without splitting the wood down the sides. After a few split pieces I determined that I would have to pre-drill holes into the wood in order to get a straight nail hole and properly secure my housing. Now that I successfully fastened the 4 sides to my housing I needed to find a piece of wood for the back. I already knew that this piece could not be anywhere near as thick as the plywood because I was going to have to fasten my Servo and attachment in the center and the screw I was using was not very long in length. Luckily, I was able to find a thin piece of wood that worked perfectly for the application I needed. I cut out a 6"x6" piece and nailed it to the back of my housing. With the rotary screw feeder housing complete all that was left was to mount the Servo in the center of the back and 3D print the screw feeder.