Carpet Machine
Design Overview:
Carpet laying is a labor intense and time consuming task. Current carpet laying techniques are also prone to dangers and hazards. The goal for this project involved creating an autonomous machine capable of tiling a 10’ x 10’ space with 1’ x 1’ carpet squares in under 50 minutes. The design process involved the use of many planning tools such as the house of quality, specification list, function tree, and morph chart before jumping into any prototypes.
House of Quality:
Our House of Quality served two purposes. One was to correlate the level of relationship (weak, moderate, or strong) between customer requirements and engineering requirements of a product. The second one was to show is a correlation between each engineering requirement was positive, negative or neutral.
From that we found that the most important customer requirements were that the device be safe, autonomous, and compact in size.
Specification List:
From our Specification sheet we could more clearly identify the constraints, objectives, capabilities, and performance of our product.
Function Tree:
The function tree helped us visualize all the different tasks and subtasks our machine was supposed to be able to complete. From it we found that the main function of the preliminary and final designs was to autonomously transport and place carpet squares.
Morph Chart:
Our morph chart allowed us to visualize several different approaches to each one of our most important tasks
Idea #1
Idea #1 consisted of a box shaped machine which used wheels at the bottom for movement. Carpet squares would be placed on the inside of the machine, on top of a platform with a spring. The robotic arms would grab a square and place it on the floor. As carpet squares would be taken out of the box, the spring would push the platform up, making it easier for the arms to reach the next one.
Idea #2
Idea #2 presented a quadcopter which would use suction pins to hold one carpet square at a time and place it on the assigned spot.
Idea #2
Idea #3 was a stationary machine, which would use an extendable releaser that would reach for the specific spot and lay the carpet square. A robotic arm would help place the squares in the spots around where the machine was placed. This iteration would also consist of a box for for square storage.
Idea #4
This idea also consists of a box for storing the squares. The big difference is that is has omnidirectional wheels which allows the machine to move in all directions. The wheels prevent the machine from getting stuck and facilitates the placement in corners and edges of the room. This idea also has a trapdoor on the bottom for releasing the squares.
Idea #5
Idea #5 is similar to idea #4. The difference is its movement function. This one uses cords attached to the machine and to 4 separate stands, acting like an arcade toy machine. It operates above the floor, so it does not touch any previously placed carpet squares.
Final Design
Idea #4 was decided to be our final design. The final design meets the customer requirements and fulfills all the intended functions. The machine is safe, compact, and places carpet squares at a fast rate. Therefore, the final design can be used by the intended consumer to speed up the carpet laying process.