Senior Design was a three semester (Spring and Fall 2014, Spring 2015) long course needed to graduate Temple University. My multi-disciplinary team consisted of a total of four people. During the course, we conceptualized, designed, built, tested, redesigned, built again and competed with a robot. The goal of the competition was to create a robot that could traverse steps, water, sand and deliver granular material. We created a mass of metal.

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I will provide only a summary, but a more in depth summary of the robot is located here. 

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The robot was divided into four major problems: Drive-train, stair climbing, water traversing/avoidance, and payload delivery. All of this had to fit into a box that was 25x25x30cm.

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The decision was made to create homemade treads like a tank by using double chain and bolting aluminum channels to it. Because of space issues, the two drive motors could not be placed next to each other, so one was placed in the rear, and another in the front of the robot. The U-Channels also were used as large cleats to grasp the lip of a step and to pull itself up. 

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A bridge was chosen as the method to avoid water. The bridge was designed to hold the weight of the robot and payload as well as to be foldable. The bridge was placed into the position by the robot with the front stair climbing arm. The bridge was released by using a 3d printed cam system with a hook, and a servo.

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For climbing the stairs, we utilized two arms, one in the front, and one in the back. These arms were used to push the entire robot up and allow the cleats on the drive train to pull the robot up.

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The payload system was left till the very end. It was figured that if the robot could not make it to the finish point of the course, there was not much point in designing a payload delivery system.  In the end, all we developed for a delivery system was a hatch in the bottom of the robot and a cloth holding area.

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