Initial Phase

The initial prototype of the car includes two columns of  domino carrier, of length 25cm each, to enable stacking of two distinct colours of dominoes (black and white) as seen in the above image. The dominoes will be pushed out of each column using a rack that is driven by the rotating disk in a motion as shown in the mp4 video.  Upon pushing out the dominoes, the dominoes will automatically slide along the curved sliding surface and land into the allocated empty slot before getting deposited out of the car using a DC motor. Each of the wheel of the car is driven by a stepper motor to enable precise movement of the car. 

The general idea of the car is to deposit the dominoes perpendicularly out of the car at a consistent time interval to create a 20 by 20 grid domino pattern. Upon completion of each row of dominoes, the car will be programmed to move one round and start at a new row below the previous.  This action will continue until 20 rows of dominoes is successfully placed. 

The micro-controller adopted is the Arduino Mega 2560 and the method of fabrication for the car is through 3D printing. 

 

Prototype

To enhance the scalability of the domino car to include more colours, we adopted a rotating mechanism that is able to deposit the domino according to the colour selected. In our prototype, we chose the three colours specifically white, black and yellow. After importing the image through the image.exe file, an array of size 20 by 20 consisting of numbers 0,1,2 corresponding to each colour is obtained. Depending on the integer value, the disk gear is made to rotate by 120 degrees to 

 

Final Product

We have iterated and improved the design to a mechanism that uses a rotating gear to allow for the selection of 3 colours. The rotation will be controlled by a fifth stepper motor in addition to the 4 used for each individual wheel. When the particular colour is selected, the stepper motor will rotate the gear to the correct orientation. A pusher connected to a rack will be retracted through the operation of a DC motor. Subsequently, a domino will fall into the gap. The upper gear will rotate away. The pusher will extend to push the domino along the slide into an upright orientation into the gap at the base of the car. Lastly, a second rack with an end effector will be extended to deposit the domino outside of the car. The car is equipped with mecanum wheels which allows for sideways motion. This combination allows for patterns of dominos to be constructed.