GEERHEAD
From this angle, customers see the most important element
of this experiment: "Free Ice Cream!”
The KUKA manipulates an
ice cream spoon.
Robo Ice Cream
Teamwork
proper location of the KUKA robots
permits their work envelope to
encompass the desired task — to
reach the ice cream, toppings, and
other elements with which they need
to interact.
"The toppings dispensers also
needed to be mounted within reach
of the toppings robot and easily
refilled by an operator. Additionally,
the size of the cup into which the
toppings were dispensed dictated the
vertical position of the dispensers
because the robot had to be able to
remove the cup with the toppings in
it, so appropriate clearance had to be
insured."
ONU uses KUKA KR3 robotic arms
for a number of student projects and
experiments, but unless next year’s
class does something with gelato, this
is the most yummy project yet! SV
Adam Stienecker and Rich
Miller derived the base concept of
using industrial robots to serve ice
cream to University constituents.
The student team leaders,
together with Professor Stienecker,
completed the design, followed by
the implementation processes of
programming, modeling, testing,
and construction of the robotic
apparatus.
Students were lead in five
groups: the vision team, the touch
panel interface team, the
mechanical fabrication team, and
the programming and logistics team.
Congratulations to all of the
team members on a successful
implementation!
Resources
Ohio Northern University
www-new.onu.edu
Ice cream robot video
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=017cTpzm0Js
Department of Technological Studies
www.onu.edu/a+s/techno/
abouttech.htm
KUKA
www.kuka.com/usa/en
RSLogix software
www.rockwellautomation.com/
rockwellsoftware/design/rslogix500/
Ladder Logic programming
http://xtronics.com/toshiba/
Ladder_logic.htm
12 SERVO 02.2009
