Robot Card Ejector/Dealer?
Midnighter
Posts: 13
For a significant fine arts/engineering project of mine, I have decided to build a rather interesting and deceptively simple 'fortune telling' machine.
However, I am a complete novice to all concepts of basic electrical engineering and robotics programming.
To try and make it more efficient and effective, I've decided to not try and tackle it as a gestalt effort, but rather to simple flowchart and compartmentalize all the behaviors the machine must be capable of performing, and tackling each one. I figure once I know how to make a machine that can perform its own required task, I can later tackle how to make them sequence and interact with each other.
For this part of the project, I am addressing the issue of the card ejector that at the end of the process will spit out a single fortune-telling card to the spectator.
I have decided to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and reduce the amount of specialized fabrication. Since the overall space allowed for the "backstage" mechanics must be kept to a minimum, I have purchased a 2-card dealer's shoe. This is an acrylic, smoothly designed device that has a flat base but inside has an angled floor. A weighted roller just sits behind a couple of decks' worth of cards and as the dealer pulls them out of the slot mouth in its front, the weight forces the remaining cards forward. What could be simpler?
So my idea is this: It seems relatively easy to let the shoe do what it was designed to do in terms of storing and dispensing the cards one at a time. What I need to do here is simply replace the human finger that would normally pull out a card at a time. My thinking is to simply apply a high-traction rubber wheel on a motor shaft. The wheel would be mounted so that it sits with a regular, even pressure against the slot and the first card at its edge. A spit of energy through the motor, a fast and hard jerk of the wheel, perhaps only a forty-five-degree turn, sufficient to pull the card out of the shoe's mouth, and gravity can take it the rest of the way down the little ramp the cards will slide down towards the spectator.
Here is the type of dealer's shoe I have acquired:
I was thinking of simply attaching the shaft across the mouth of the shoe, with the rubber traction wheel, the 'grabber' centrally located. On one of the sides it would be mounted, and on the other side of course would be the motor itself running the affair.
It seems simple, but again I'm new at all this. I would like any feedback you folks can offer about what might be the best motor for this, and the best way to go about making a working, simple mount to attach it to the shoe.
I would also like to add that the whole assembly would have about a three inch allowance from the bottom of the case the machine will rest inside, so any additional machinery or workings could be mounted within a 'scaffold' underneath the shoe itself.
Happy Fourth of July, and as always great thanks to anyone for input and thoughts on this.
However, I am a complete novice to all concepts of basic electrical engineering and robotics programming.
To try and make it more efficient and effective, I've decided to not try and tackle it as a gestalt effort, but rather to simple flowchart and compartmentalize all the behaviors the machine must be capable of performing, and tackling each one. I figure once I know how to make a machine that can perform its own required task, I can later tackle how to make them sequence and interact with each other.
For this part of the project, I am addressing the issue of the card ejector that at the end of the process will spit out a single fortune-telling card to the spectator.
I have decided to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and reduce the amount of specialized fabrication. Since the overall space allowed for the "backstage" mechanics must be kept to a minimum, I have purchased a 2-card dealer's shoe. This is an acrylic, smoothly designed device that has a flat base but inside has an angled floor. A weighted roller just sits behind a couple of decks' worth of cards and as the dealer pulls them out of the slot mouth in its front, the weight forces the remaining cards forward. What could be simpler?
So my idea is this: It seems relatively easy to let the shoe do what it was designed to do in terms of storing and dispensing the cards one at a time. What I need to do here is simply replace the human finger that would normally pull out a card at a time. My thinking is to simply apply a high-traction rubber wheel on a motor shaft. The wheel would be mounted so that it sits with a regular, even pressure against the slot and the first card at its edge. A spit of energy through the motor, a fast and hard jerk of the wheel, perhaps only a forty-five-degree turn, sufficient to pull the card out of the shoe's mouth, and gravity can take it the rest of the way down the little ramp the cards will slide down towards the spectator.
Here is the type of dealer's shoe I have acquired:
I was thinking of simply attaching the shaft across the mouth of the shoe, with the rubber traction wheel, the 'grabber' centrally located. On one of the sides it would be mounted, and on the other side of course would be the motor itself running the affair.
It seems simple, but again I'm new at all this. I would like any feedback you folks can offer about what might be the best motor for this, and the best way to go about making a working, simple mount to attach it to the shoe.
I would also like to add that the whole assembly would have about a three inch allowance from the bottom of the case the machine will rest inside, so any additional machinery or workings could be mounted within a 'scaffold' underneath the shoe itself.
Happy Fourth of July, and as always great thanks to anyone for input and thoughts on this.
Comments
-Phil
BTW, this thread ought to be moved to Robotics or to the Sandbox.
Plastic coated playing cards are very slick and easily slide out of the shoe.
Your fortune telling cards may have to be equally slick.
You might try a few different substrates and make sure they perform correctly in the shoe,
using your hand, before building a mechanical roller device.
Dave G
I posted it here because I'm going to have to operate this mechanism via the BASIC stamp 2 module, and it's the first point where I need to clarify what motor and setup for the stamp would be best served for the dealing mechanism.