Poe Project Pre-proposal

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POE Project Pre-Proposal Colin Zwieble, Xy Ziemba, Jacob West, Travis Schuh, and Hyeontaek Oh

I. OVERVIEW OF F UNCTIONALITY Our team would like to create a 2-D CNC blue foam cutting device that uses a moving hot wire. Such a device would in theory be able to cut the outside profile of any drawing on a piece of blue foam. For example, it would be reasonable to expect this device to take a standard thickness blue foam rectangle and cut it into a block letter J. We want our device to make clean cuts that give no indication as to whether the cut was made by human or machine. We aim to make it possible to cut designs that fit within a 16”x24” rectangle with a depth that could be varied depending on the thickness of the sheet or sheets of foam, with a maximum depth of 12”. Also, if two parts are cut on our machine using the same source drawing, we want those two parts to be indistinguishable to the human eye. We want our device to take inputs of a standard drawing file format and to be usable with only a little prior training. II. M ECHANICAL S YSTEMS The main goals for the mechanical system is to design and build a machine that is capable of accurately moving a wire around. At the basics, the system will consist of a structure that has both an x and a y axis and can move a point around in a 16” by 24” planar space. Each axis will be controlled with a separate motor and resemble some sort of trolley/track arrangement. To cut foam, we will straddle two of these structures across a 12” gap and string a heatable wire between the two moving points. The main challenge will be to create something that is rigid enough to attain the desired level of precision. III. E LECTRICAL S YSTEM The electrical component of the 2-D CNC blue foam cutter will consist of a control mechanisms and human interface mechanisms. We envision the control system being comprised of four motors and sensing equipment to determine the position of the motors and the temperature of the wire. Ideally, the sensing equipment will also automatically calibrate the position and speed of the motor. Calibration can also be performed using a joystick to generate reference points. The human interface component involves conversion of 2-D CAD drawings into machine instructions. We envision the user using a tool (possibly web based or downloadable) to convert CAD into machine instructions. The user would then upload these instructions to the machine to cut using either a USB or Ethernet connection. Ideally, the machines microcontroller would handle this conversion, although it is understood that the mathematics involved might consume excessive processing power and require a host computer. We anticipate the user using a joystick to set the start position as a reference point and presetting a desired cut speed. Once the cutting process is started, the foam cutter should require no further user interaction until the job is completed.