Robots are hard (Patreon)

I've really been banging my head literally and figuratively over this cut-o-matic bot the past week. First  the mechanics were giving me a lot of lip and now it's the software control. The mechanics were tricky because there are so many stacked axis. Is has:

1. Servo actuated scissors riding on a linear stage2. Servo actuated "stylist fingers". 3. That entire assembly is rotatable on a 2 axis gimbal4. That gimbal assembly is on a 2 axis gantry 5. The gantry is on a turntable. 

No individual part is that complicated but getting it all into a reasonably compact assembly took a lot of iterations. It's pretty cool to see it choochin' around now that it's all built up. I'm excited to get the video made and share it with everyone. 

Though before I can do that I have to escape from software hell. I think I'm mostly past the part where 1 in 5 times it randomly would stab my face with the scissors (see above) but I definitely wouldn't stick my head in this thing yet. 

The main software challenge is cutting at the right location on the head. If you move your head around, the system needs to know where it is relative to your head. I put a bunch of time into bringing up a depth sensing camera with face tracking (intel realsense) but it's just a bit too finicky with the robot sometimes occluding it. Plan B is a probe that will let it sense where my head is relative to the business end. I think this will be enough since the main error that matters is the length that it cuts rather than absolute location on the head so long as I stay reasonably still. 

I'm waiting on some parts to print but I was able to execute most of a virtual cut. Hopefully wrapping up soon!