Fall 2016 Velociraptor (W): Mass and Power Report

/in , /by

By Gifty Sackey (Mission, System, Test Engineer)

Approved by: Lam Nguyen (Project Manager)

Table of Contents

Mass Report

The mass of the Wednesday Velociraptor was 348 grams. As part of the level two requirements, the mass of the robot should not be greater than 350 grams. The mass of the robot was an important thing to consider because the DC motors needed to be able to drive the mass allotted.

In calculating the mass of the robot, a motor torque test was performed in order to make sure that we were aware of any constraints. The Wednesday Velociraptor is controlled with two GM 9 motors which based on the torque test can drive up to 1000g.  With our Velociraptor having an overall weight of 348 grams, we were confident that the DC motors would be able to drive the mass.

Power Report

This table down below is a representation of the power report schedule that was created by the Velociraptor senior design group. For the mass report, there were a series of tests that were performed in order to test whether the Velociraptor would be supplied with enough power to move it. This duration request was necessary to satisfy the requirement which stated that: “The 3rd generation Velociraptor shall operate for a minimum of one hour with an external power source minimum of 1560 mA-hours.

In order to successfully pass this requirement, the measured current drawn from the Velociraptor needed to be based on the components needed to accomplish our goal. First thing was to determined the stall current from each component and narrow down a type of battery our robot needed. After the battery was determined we needed to find an operational current rating from our components which were the 2 DC motors, one servo, and two stepper motors.

Change in design

Our project objective changed by gearing the projects direction to static walking as opposed to dynamic walking. As a result we took out components out from our design such as the two stepper motor driver. With our new design a test was performed in order to fulfill this requirement and was successfully passed. An in depth procedure of the testing performed can be found in the test validation and verification test plans.

Test Plan link: