BarBot/Meetings/Thu 2014-06-05

BarBot Meeting 2014-05-15

Attendees: Mouse, Ian D, Ed Raisin Agenda: Just hacking

Ian pulled another magic thing out of the hat - this time a delivery mechanism for cherries! Bravo!
Mouse dismantled some of the early prototypes which are no longer needed
Ed and Ian worked on the software for the squirter, getting it to do a single squirt at a time.
- Might be able to reduce the space on the rail which the squirters need to 50 mm or maybe even down to 42mm if they are slightly staggered (the screw lugs protrude from the sides about 4 mm each side, but can be offset from one another).
Mouse discovered that while there are many optic clamps, we only have one g-clamp which makes them easily mountable on a baton. It will still be possible to mount them directly on the back board, but it will be a little uglier and less stable. Need to try it and see if it is a problem or not.
Ian and Mouse started work on a mounting panel for the optics with a short piece of maker slide and some MDF:
- Turns out we need quite a clearance for the 'solo' type optic because the arm extends downward quite a way.
- Might be able to saw off the end and pull the arm from higher up. We could gain about 20mm of clearance this way.
- Ian suggested heating and bending the arm to get it out of the way of the glass as an alternative to chopping which would preserve leverage at the cost of needing a hole in the backboard to pull the arm into
- Other solution - just put the optic higher on the board. There's not a real problem with this, other than making the board taller.

Cocktail Research: Make a list of candidate (doable) cocktails to aim for
Servos: Test the new (cheaper) servos Daniel bought for optic mech (also Mouse has one in the post)
Pressure taps: build more water tight ones
Pressure taps: see if the amount of space they take can be reduced (cutting them down at the sides / finding a way to stagger them)
Arduino: work out how many servos we need (11?), and decide what sort of microcontroller / shield / power circuit is appropriate for driving them and the stepper for the platform
Arduino code: write an Arduino sketch which can operate all servos, platform and squirters and the syringe based on a simple command protocol (e.g. "GOTO OPTIC 5, DISPENSE 2 UNITS, HOLD TIME 3 SECONDS, GAP TIME 1 SECOND"). Also defining that protocol. I'd expect a message like that to look something like 'P5D2H3.0G2.0[checkbits]'
Write web front end
Make cocktail database schema