Transcript TECH CENTRE CASE STUDY Teach Design ltd VEX IQ

TECH CENTRE CASE STUDY
With thanks to
Teach Design ltd
3D printing with VEX and VEX IQ
The VEX and VEX IQ robotics systems offer many opportunities for 3D
printing. At Clevedon School staff and students have been experimenting
with 3D printing custom parts.
CubeX and Cube 3D Printer
Clevedon Tech Centre
by Mr D White(Coordinator)
May 2014
VEX- Background
Our STEM club received a VEX kit via an Autodesk grant. The students were
required to build a robot and enter into the regional competition. But
everything didn’t go to plan!
At the time the provided kits were to build a Protobot, the students
decided very early in the build process that they wanted to be a bit
different and to build a Clawbot instead. Partway into the build they
realised their mistake… the kit didn’t contain a claw! So, they were
challenged to make their own.
Building the claw
After searching online the students found that all the VEX
parts were available for download… so why not 3D print the
parts?
Although the original parts are printable most are quite
challenging, requiring internal and external support material,
so the students redesigned the parts for easier printing.
Carbomorph
The students had been recording their progress with
a team blog, they regularly posted about their
developments. This came to the attention of Dr
Simon Leigh at Warwick University who was
engaged in a research project to develop a 3D
printable electrically conductive polymerCarbomorph. Dr Leigh contacted the team and
showed them the polymer and the students came
up with the idea of printing touch sensors for the
claw!
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]
TECH CENTRE CASE STUDY
With thanks to
Teach Design ltd
VEX IQ- Background
CubeX and Cube 3D Printer
With the introduction of VEX IQ our students realised that the plastic
construction method lends itself to printing custom parts.
All the original VEX IQ parts are available for download and can easily be
modified using CAD software.
This page illustrates a few of the initial experiments with making 3D
printed VEX IQ parts from Clevedon School.
Clevedon Tech Centre
by Mr D White(Coordinator)
May 2014
Pusher
This part was designed for
fixing to the front of a
robot… ideal for making a
“fooballbot”.
Buckyball
Not having a buckyball in
the VEX IQ Clawbot kit our
students decided to make
their own
Omnidirectional wheels
A more complex design but
simplified and modified for
3D printing
Pusher and digger
Replacing the claw with a
digger bucket provides a
solution for picking up small
objects
VEX and VEX IQ part downloads
VEX IQ http://www.vexrobotics.com/vexiq/documents-downloads/cad-downloads/
VEX http://studentsdownload.autodesk.com/ef/27288/cdcoll/downloads/VEXKOP/VEX2013KOPMetric.zip
Note that 3D printed parts are not “legal” for VEX and VEX IQ competitions!
@ Teach Design 2014 | Company No. 08388797 | Vat No. 163 3794 90 | [email protected]