Catapult inspired throwing robot

Sammanfattning

In this thesis, a catapult inspired robot is constructed which can aim and throw small wooden balls at targets. The goal was to achieve the best possible accuracy, precision and throwing capability. The robot was mainly constructed using 3D printers, where a stepper motor was used for the aiming mechanism and a high torque DC-motor was used for the throwing mechanism. All electrical components were connected to an Arduino Uno microcontroller, from which all the needed calculations were made. When tested, the robot could throw a maximum of 4.8 m with a wooden ball with mass 7 g. The precision was high but the accuracy was below expectations and varied depending on the distance and direction of the target. The robot would hit its targets 66% of the times, where the targets consisted of horizontal discs with radius 7.5 cm.