This week the Addtronics team has been hard at work making final modifications to the final functional design. These modifications include refining parts to make them more aesthetically pleasing and reliable. So far we have refined the interface and reinforced it using steel rods. This new interface was designed to withstand higher loads and avoid breakage under unusual circumstances. Additionally, we have modified an off the shelf aluminum part to replace the plastic adapter part. This part greatly improves the rigidity of the design as this part holds a large stress concentration. The aluminum allows it to resist the large concentrated stress and improves its lifespan. This part was manually machined in order to properly hold our final end effector design which is thicker and stronger than the one used in testing in order to provide additional support. In terms of electronics, we have incorporated a flashing beacon to indicate when the quadruped is being operated out in the field and begun incorporating sensors. The beacon is visible in inclement weather to nearby service men and citizens. We have installed a gyroscope sensor in order to tell when the robotic arm assembly has made contact with the lid. This will allow the lifting motion to be carried out more swiftly and pressing less buttons by calculating some of the lifting trajectories that will be deployed at the push of one button.

Moving forward we plan to continue further organizing the mechanical and electronic components so they are tidy, easy to understand, and reliable. Additionally, we plan to make the GUI even more user friendly by implementing the one button push approach using the sensors.