Dylan Bogod
Robot Lab
Whole-cohort Manufacturing Engineering project: 3 weeks to produce a fully-functioning automated assembly line.
The Project
Robot Lab is an integral part of the Cambridge Manufacturing Engineering experience. The entire cohort (29 people) work together to produce a fully-autonomous assembly line in 3 weeks, using 6 industrial robots and a shuttle conveyor system. All end effectors, fixtures and part dispensers are designed and built from scratch; all robots and PLCs are coded in their native languages. The finished system must assemble, test and package a simple gearbox.
Team Project
The 29 students were split between technical and managerial roles. I was part of a two person team responsible for the programming and end effector design/manufacture of the SCARA robot.
Robot Lab Video
A video demonstration of the entire, fully-functioning, automated assembly line, produced, filmed and edited by a member of the group.
The SCARA robot
A timelapse of the robot I worked on. The robot received the assembled gearbox, spun one of the gears and measured the speed of the other gear, verified the result against data in the MES, retrieved a packing box from the dispenser, packaged the gearbox, and stamped the lid according to the speed measured.
End Effector Design
The end effector consists of 3 modules bolted to an aluminium plate: vacuum suction cups for part handling, a stamp for marking the lids, and a testing rig which span one gear and measured the speed of the other. Developing a module that temporarily locks onto, and spins, a gear was a complex mechanical challenge; avoiding interference between the 3 modules and surrounding fixturing was equally challenging.
Measuring the Speed
Despite Robot Lab running for many years of students, my team were the first to successfully use the robot's built-in timer feature to accurately measure the gear speed. Faced with a robot from 1998, and a mismatched instruction manual for a related 2002 model, we worked backwards to solve the mystery of robot system variables, a discovery which opened up a whole new level of robot functionality.