Dante, Hunter, Corinne, and I sat down to design our new painting robot and define its technical requirements.
The biggest decision made, among many important ones, was to design the new robotic paint head to work on both an XY-Table and and Robotic Arm. We did a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the two and they were pretty even. Thats when Hunter asked if the head would work on either and we realized that we did not have to choose between the two. There was probably a way to design it to work on either. As a result of the meeting, our focus has shifted from make a Painting Robot, to concentrating on making a Painting Robot Head (or Tool) that can be used by any robot whether it be an XY Table, Robot Arm, or even something anthropomorphic like an Asimo. We will design a robot around this Paint Head, but its cool to think about how to design the paint head so that any robot can use it.
You can see the details we arrived at on the white board but to summarize main features:
1: will have 6 airbrushes, a paintbrush, and camera.
2: will require 6 valves and a servo for the brush.
3: will need air supply, power, and comm line.
We have not yet determined whether or not controller will be part of robot paint head, or stored in separate module along with air compressor.
Some concerns we have are:
1: Will there be enough paint in Airbrush reservoirs?
2: Where are we going to put camera?
3: How will we raise and lower traditional brush?
But most importantly, we are trying to figure out what Corinne meant by her contribution to the meeting in the photo below. We sense that its something big, but what could it mean?