Week 6: Drawbacks & Solutions

This week, the group was met with its first set of drawbacks. We have now reached the stage of project where the Feeder design is concrete and prototyping has officially gone underway. 

Having received the Servo Motor necessary to revolve the plexiglass feeder cover, alongside the Arduino Uno, batteries and the minor parts that complete the electronic section of the feeder, the team has begun working on the programming necessary to run the servo motor.  During the first round of testing; using a Servomotor, the Arduino Uno, and a 9V battery power source to test the rotation of the servomotor, our initial servomotor was burned out. Due to the high voltage of the 9V battery compared to the 4.8 - 6V range of the Servomotor the Servo overheated and was fried. On purchasing a new servomotor, an alternative power source was used. Instead of the 9V battery, a battery pack that consists of four AA batteries was used. This successfully ran the servomotor. In further posts, another reason for the use of the battery pack is highlighted.

The second drawback concerned the circular plexiglass Feeder cover. Due to the brittle nature of the plexiglass; on attempting to sand down the rough edges of the cover, the feeder snapped in half. A new cover was cut, adding one inch to the diameter so as to increase the coverage of the feeder.