WEEK 1
DESIGN THINKING AND PROBLEMS ANALYSIS
Summer Studio B is a subject where students engage in a particular field of the world of engineering, analyse any problems and issue existed with that field and propose a solution toward that. They then will have to work to design, prototype, and develop the solution so that it will be presented by the end of the subject. This is really an interesting and realistic subject, where students are allowed to show their creativity at a maximum level, with unlimited supports and encouragements from professors and tutors.
My Studio for this subject is Studio 15: Robotics meet Advanced Fabrication, where robotics and 3D printing technology are combined and integrated together to create a robust and reliable 3D printing procedure.
In order to achieve that final ultimate goal, it is important that we - students - need to analyse the problems and issues that existed with traditional 3D printing methods. as well as the stakeholders for the technology. Basically, 3D printing is applied in a vast range of fields, such as prototyping, manufacturing, engineering, and more. The stakeholders are everyone who uses 3D printing, both for entertainment purposes or for their work: engineers, researchers, even students and kids.
Despite the utility of 3D printing, some problems prevent this technology from getting more and more popular:
- High manufacturing cost
- Time-consuming
- Limitation of printing materials
- Limitation of the printing scale
- Errors during the printing procedure
- Tolerances of the printer
- Problems with the printer
Based on the listed problems above, some problems can be fixed if robots are integrated. For this Studio, I will try to tackle the problems relating to Errors during the printing procedure.
My focus in this Studio is to develop a system that uses a camera and Computer Vision algorithm to detect and take records of a 3D printed part, make some comparison with the original 3D file and make decisions whether the part should be discarded or not. The camera will be mounted on the robot manipulator. It will then be moved to various locations to take records of the 3D printed part.
As there are two parts in my project: Computer Vision and Robot Manipulator, I will spend the second week working on the following tasks:
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Learn how to model the UR3 with Matlab and simulate it with Gazebo
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Try Computer Vision in Matlab: Grayscaling, Color Thresholding, Edge Detection
As for the first task, it is quite challenging because this is the first time I have no experience with robotics modelling and simulation. The limitation in time is also another worth -considered factor. For the second task, it will be more comfortable due to the experience I had with OpenCV. By the end of the second week, the primary achievement that I want to reach is a Matlab model of UR3.
Some images about the ProtoSpace Tour and UTS:CAS Tour where we were given an opportunity to speak with the stakeholders and researchers in the field of both Robotics and 3D printing.
