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The main objective of this project is to create a python-based system to check in passengers alongside a mechanical system that will be responsible to transport passenger luggage from the conveyer belt to the airplane or rejection bin depending on what the scanner says when the bag is initially scanned. The issue that our mechanism will combat is the disorganization of the airport baggage system by operating a system that coordinates the luggage with the passenger’s destination. To summarize, our mechanism should interpret barcodes to see where the luggage goes and move the luggage to the correct location (rejection bin or to mechanism). The mechanism should smoothly move the luggage from one platform to the other completing one cycle of the mechanism.
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The first step we took in the project was making a Gantt chart and allocating time to each milestone. This Gantt chart was simply a projection of what we thought our time would be spent towards rather than the real amount of time that was actually allocated to each part of the project. We then selected roles depending on who we thought was most comfortable in that role and would excel in it. The role that I was assigned was administrator which was responsible for submissions, deadlines, and making the final Gantt chart which would display the real amount of time spent on each milestone. After that, we made a Microsoft teams platform to communicate outside of scheduled meetings as we emphasized communication as a key part throughout the project in order to be successful.
Figure 1: Shows the Preliminary Gantt Chart that contains the predicted time allocation of each part of the project, Source: Own
As administrator, my main responsibilities included submitted all team work, reminding teammates of deadlines, and making the final Gantt chart which would display the real amount of time spent on each milestone. Alongside my role specific duties, I contributed to the overall design and coding portions of the project seen below.
Figure 7: Shows the Final Gantt Chart that contains the real time that was allocated to each part of the project, Source: Own
Our final results were mostly positive as we succeeded in our graphical representation and our mechanism mostly worked. The only major issue we ended up encountering was during our test demo where the rotary actuator was too weak to retract the arm after it was extracted. Thus, the mechanism was stuck in its extracted position. This arose due to our model being too heavy and our overestimation of the amount of torque the rotary actuator we were supplied could output. If given another chance at making our mechanism work, hollowing out the arm would lower the overall weight of our model making it require less torque to rotate. Another method could be buying a rotary actuator with more power which could supply the needed torque for our mechanism to work.
Figure 11: Final graphical representation that shows each flight and its corresponding data calculated through the implementation of our individual and team functions, Source: Own
Figure 12: Final mechanism model that was 3D-printed and attached to the rotary actuator, Source: Own
The project was mostly a success, but we had several issues throughout the process and with our final mechanism. Throughout the project, one of our group members consistently lacked effort and thus required the others to fill in the gaps. Because of this, we struggled with time towards the end of the project. A method to fix this conflict in the team could be communicating with the group member about their lack of work as we never really talked with the group member about it and rather kept it to ourselves. If we confronted them, they might have realized the mistakes they were making and become more active as a team member. Another issue encountered was 3D printing and tolerance limits on the holes of our 3D model in Autodesk Inventor. When we first 3D printed our design, the holes were too small despite us already adjusting for the shrinkage due to the heat while printing. A method we did to fix this was to make the diameter of the holes a little bit bigger in Inventor which ended up working. For future projects, this error helped me understand and know the tolerance limit that holes will need when 3D printing. Finally, the crucial error in our project was our mechanism not being able to retract during the demo due to the power we anticipated the rotary actuator could output and the weight of our model. To fix the rotary actuator issue, we could replace it with a rotary actuator that can output more torque and have enough power for the arm to retract. We observed that the linear actuator, in general, outputs more power and is able to support more load than the rotary actuator during testing. If given time, we could repurpose our model to work with the linear actuator instead through gears and other means which potentially fixes the power issue. To fix the weight of our arm, hollowing out the arm is the simplest method as it reduces the weight while keeping the overall shape. Instead of hollowing the arm out, another option could be thinning the arm by extruding it less in Inventor which would lower the weight of the arm while keeping it strong since it is not completely hollow. Overall, I faced many errors throughout this project which helped my critical thinking skills as I had to troubleshoot and think about ideas to solve these issues. These struggles taught me potential errors to look out for in future projects.