Goals
Design the control system and a prototype of an elevator than can go between three floows in any combination. The prototype must include a set of three switches to represent each floor of the elevator. Each floor the elevator stops at must have a call button and a set of three lights to indicate the current floor level of the elevator. A built-in safety mechanism requires that the elevator normally rest on the groud floor and return to the ground floor after a user-determined period of nonuse.
Materials used in the project
This project is easily one of the most chanlleging project of all year. This Elevator project required strong team-collaboration, coding skills, building techniques as well as strong progress managing. This is the project that really pushed our thinkings and made us apply all the things that had been taught in the engineering lessons. The coding process had to come after the entire building process is finished and adjustments on codes are required after changes in structure, thus making the skill of project-management especially important. Just like the building, we had to come up multiple coding algorithms and then choose for a best one that fit the final design.
The Building Process
Finished Elevator Demonstration
At first, we wasn't sure which to use as our main sensor for the detection of the elevator's floor height-- the optical encoder or the ultrasonic sensor. Encoder proved to be more accurate according to our prior knowledge. But through testing, we found that the ultrasonic sensor displayed incredible consistency and accuracy we needed for thisnproject and it is easier to program.
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The most diffcult problem that we encountered in the process of the building of this elevator prototype is the stabilization of the tower and the porgraming of the ultrasonic sensor. Since the tower is fairly tall (42cm), the tower was wobbling and a little shacky in the beginning, that was due to the lack of supports of the sides of the tower. We solved that problem by adding support bars to three sides of the tower so its base is tight with the platform. We also attached bars to 2 of the sides mid-way up, helping it maintain the structure. Even though the ultrasonic sensor is more reliable than the encoder, we still had diffculties setting it up. It took us quite some time to test the distance btween each floors with the ultrasonic sensor, fixing the variable for each floor level distance in the code and adjust the floor level distance accordingly.
Overall, our final design was a success, it is reliable, it's consistent, and it has all the functionalities required. Since this is a large group project, thus teamwork was consequently very crucial and among the many other important engeering skills I have learned from the project, collababoration is definitely the one that benefited me the most.
Overall, our final design was a success, it is reliable, it's consistent, and it has all the functionalities required. Since this is a large group project, thus teamwork was consequently very crucial and among the many other important engeering skills I have learned from the project, collababoration is definitely the one that benefited me the most.