Project Description

In grade 12 computer engineering course, I learned and practice the graphic programming to prototype simple embedded system. Through series of challenges, I demonstrated superior capacity of understanding new concepts and effectively apply all learned knowledge to the projects, and effectively created new and alternative designs and ideas. Particularly, my final class project on the prototype of a microwave oven impressed teacher, who suggested me to lead a team of 2 and compete on Robotics and Control System Design in Halton Skills. Subsequently, for the sake of enriching my experience and due to my passion in robotics, I went for the competition. During the competition, I demonstrated my excellent time management, problem solving skills, and leadership.

Because of being chosen for the competition, I am so ecstatic and did a lot of extra practice and experiments with different mechanisms, sensors, and topics. For example, in three floor elevator, I designed a simple mechanism but useful for most projects, acting as a master emergency stop for shutting down all operating machines by one clicking for additional safety feature to prevent the failure of software stop. Additionally, I designed physical stops and emergency light signals to ensure the prototype is safe for users under any possible situation. Beyond practicing mechanical construction, I also tried multiple programming structure such as time based, if-statement based, and variable based programming for different purposes and problems. Furthermore, I did varied researches on mechanical structure on daily embedded system and proper schematic drawings. On last weekends before competition, I collaborated with my friend (Peter) on sample problems. During the meeting, we arranged the time for competition and allotted workload. Accordingly, I mainly work on the programming, wiring, and schematic drawings due to better understanding on these fields than Peter, while, he focused on mechanical construction and project report. Since Peter’s lack of mechanical experience, I shared some of my innovative ideas on mechanical building and past researches on different mechanism. After one day of collaboration, we are pretty confident for any challenges.

On the day of competition, we carried equipments and parts that are already sorted by us into the competing arena and were ready for 3-hour design battle. First project was the vehicle lifter. For this project, I discussed with Peter and shared my past experience and observation of the lifter in Grade 11 Transportation Technology class. Based on the description and my experience, I listed tasks that are mandatory and extra functions in order to create a flow chart and task hierarchy. After discussion and topic break down, I started programming using flow charts, while Peter started his construction. We spent an hour of building and half hour of debugging. However, the progress did not work as what I expected but a bit delay. For the second project, we quickly adjusted our time plan and minimize unnecessary steps and accelerate our pace.

Eventually, we won the first place and earned qualification for Ontario Skill Competition. In addition, my programming layout and comments got highly acknowledgement from the judges for its simplicity and optimization. Furthermore, my innovative idea of physical emergency stop also amazed the judge. From the process of the competition including previous preparation and later discussion with other competitors and judges, I learned many new knowledge beyond the course-contents, meanwhile, for the most important part, my communication, problem solving, and experience got rich and enhanced.

Project Description

Collaborated with teammates on finishing designing and mechanical constructions.

Used SolidWorks to design and model parts of robots.

Expressed thoughts and constructive feedbacks clearly to team members and leaders.

Fostered other new members and motivated them to learn and participate; all members indicated their interests in robotics and participating the team next competition

Project Description

During October 6 and 7 (2016), all students in Mechatronics Engineering involved in a special competition, called Tron Days, with everyone working on a variety of challenging problems with groups of 4. As a member of Team JADO, I was highly involved in team designing, problem solving, and collaboration with other members. While overcoming these tough and complex questions, I demonstrated creative and critical thinking skills. Specifically, during the solving of Big Problem Sets, I used my creative and critical thinking skills by applying and connecting multidisciplinary concepts, and redefining problems outside the box.

Through solving a series of problems on first morning, I quickly realized that there was no limit on the field and the way of solving. As a result, I opened up my mind and related every questions with a multidisciplinary approach. For example, on the Zombie question (which is a Markov Chain problem), I connected the probability and the concept on Markov Chain with matrix multiplication in Linear Algebra and programming in Digital Computation in order to further increase the efficiency and speed of calculation [Click here for the code]. After finishing the Zombie Questions, my team and I read through other problems and found an interest in extending question on The Martian Explosion. From our calculation and conclusion on a previous Martian question, I recognized it was unrealistic to use several duct tape, with the interior pressure being about 200 times more than the pressure on Mars. Meanwhile, I was given a sheet metal and several I-beams. I started to critically think about the materials and realized that it is impossible to seal the room completely and safely using our current available materials. I then thought about the hydroforming used in the industrial shaping. Therefore, I came up with an innovative idea about reusing the destructive pressure for forming the thin metal sheet into a dome shape by using the pressure difference, since the dome shape can resist tremendous pressure and divides these pressure to the side evenly. I drew several rough isometric sketches to show and map my idea and introduced my idea to the team. After explaining, all team members were really surprised about this innovative and unique idea. Meanwhile, members and I argued and discussed about several concerns, questions and suggestions to further elevate the reliability of the design. Then, I created plans and assigned tasks on analyzing with hand calculations of expected pressure and forces, 3D modeling to view the details and scale of the structure, and pressure simulation to back up the viability of our hand calculations to each member. Meanwhile, I redrew the conceptual diagram and idea map for a neat report and listed all assumptions. Through these work, my conceptual design was well evaluated and proved.

Ultimately, my team and I handed in a well written report with well-drawn diagrams, which clearly explained our design process and the importance of multidiscipline problem-solving and thinking outside the boundaries. In the end, my team and I enjoyed the process of designing and got honorable mention in EGAD and positivie acknowledgement from professors. Overall, my actions made the entire design process very smooth, unique and successful, which clearly illustrates my ability of critical thinking based on multidisciplinary approaches. In addition, I even created [ the website ] and [ videos ] about my team and also unified the team during the designing process, which further showed my leadership and teamwork skills. At the same time, I am starting to recognize that I am using critical thinking skills to work on all my course assignments. In retrospect, I believe the experience I earned and skills I improved in Tron Days will be really memorable and influential to my future projects.

Project Description

As part of my final MTE100 course project, I have been working on mechanical designs and software interface for our ROBOTIC ARM, which will help other developers and users to reduce the workload of repeated tasks. During these four weeks of designing and building with a team of four, I exhibited leadership skills in the team. Specifically, I showed leadership by helping the team to pre-plan, managing and assigning different tasks to each individuals.

As soon as we formed the team for final project and started our project, I began to plan and research. That evening in my free time, I started to do brainstorming, and came up with 3 different interesting topics for final project with some basic designs. The next day, we discussed about the topic and what type of project to do. Finally, after discussion, we decide to do something versatile and special, a Robotic Arm, one of my idea. I was so excited about my idea being interested and chosen, and did research on different design and properties of variety of robotic arms. On the next team meeting, I brought out a summary of different type of robotic arms and a breakdown of the tasks of our project. Again, after a long time discussion, we finally agreed on one design, 4-axis articulated robot arm due to its efficiency, flexibility, and simplicity. I then suggested a rough plan on our schedule and latest deadline of each design part. Everyone agreed to the plan: finishing the mechanical design within 2 weeks and leave 2 weeks for software development and user interface. Robotic arm indeed is a big challenge because of the complex mechanical design and math algorithm such as inverse kinematics. During the mechanical design, we came up 5 different ideas but all designs got denied by us after discussion. Eventually, I came up with a great solution to solve the system, supported with the calculation including the torque on each joint required. On Friday, I worked on mechanical construct with one of teammates, Ali. Meanwhile, Dustin tries to build our planetary gear box system in solidworks, designed by me originally. To finish all these components, I used up all my 3 hours of my free time on every Tuesday of that month to finish laser-cutting acrylic pieces for our robot and 3D-print. Over two weeks of construction and designing, our mechanical system got well evaluated and fully built. At the same time, I developed a basic plan of our software design, detailed flow chart on each function, and assign each member a task to do. I also suggested to proofread everyone’s code and point out the confusion and advice. At the same time, I started to create the main body of program and figure out some new function that we could possibly develop to show the flexibility our robot. Eventually, we developed a program that check and plot points based on actual x-y-z cartesian coordinate and act like an industrial robot with focus on the safety and accuracy. In addition, we programmed the arm in order to be controlled by joystick and record each action for later developments, and a drawing algorithm that projects 2D drawing on the drawing plane and draws the image on that plane.

In the end, we presented the final project on the demo day, which brought a huge interest from professors, TAs and all other students. From professor’s comments and students’ feedback, our work got highly acknowledgement, which showed our success of our design. Exercising leadership skills, I organized the team workflow and design for the whole projects. Overall, my actions made the entire final project process very smooth and successful. I believe my actions also show my initiative (preparing early), dedication(spending my most spare time on the project), and organizing skills, and I am starting to recognize that I am using leadership skills to work with group of four.