Goal: Create a safe and accessible environment for wheelchair users in a food pantry. To achieve this the idea of creating a device to open the fridge doors with a remote and retrofit into their existing fridges was put in place. I designed the kinematics, mechanical specs, electrical, and software for the device.
These equations dictate the specs for the linear slider needed to fully open and close the door. Given a range of angles (the door opening and closing), known lengths for the door (D) and the motor placement (r), we were able to find the range in length our slider would travel, along with the angle the motor would need to move in relation to the door angle.
L = √(r² + D² − 2Dr·cos(θ))
Ø = tan⁻¹( D·sin(θ) / (D·cos(θ) − r) )
This is a draft for the electrical schematic that shows the wiring for all components into the Arduino, such as power supplies, motors, motor controllers, current sensors for force detection, and lidar sensors for control.
Results: Out of all senior projects, mine was the only project to win an award for best student project in mechanical engineering.