August 2, 2014
Only Ed, Joseph, Sam, and Tony were able to attend this week, but we made good progress anyway.
We completed assembly of the prototype armature (shown below). The purpose of the armature is to determine the minimum number and placement of pivot points needed to give the wearer reasonable mobility.
The next steps on the armature are to refine the limb lengths, and figure out how to fasten the armature to the wearer.
We also did the first complete test of the first prototype elbow. This version of the elbow uses a Hall Effect sensor to determine if the wearer wants to extend or retract their arm. We used a pneumatic cylinder for actuation in this version because we had one sitting around from Saphira (a previous project).
Other pictures from the build session
Ed learned to weld and use the drill press:
The limb lengths will need to be adjusted:
