Robotic Playground Swing

Background

Parametric resonance is the phenomena in which a system is excited into resonance through the variation of a system parameter. In the case of our project, the parameter we are changing is the length of the pendulum resulting in an increasing amplitude of the swing's motion.  A child on a swing changes the length of the swing by shifting their center of mass.  The child starts with their legs hanging beneath the seat and as the swing passes through the bottom of its swinging motion (when the displacement is zero) they kick their legs forward which shifts their center of mass up . This is essentially the same as shortening the length of the pendulum. We plan to mimic this motion by utilizing 2 servos with custom servo horns which will be used to represent the child's legs in our model swing.  The servos will allow us control over the motion of the second pendulum the same way a child has control over the position of their legs.  It is also important that we move the servos at the correct time of the swing motion. This will be done by using an IMU to track the position and velocity of the swing.  Using the position and velocity data we can determine the proper times to move the servos. All of the positional data will be recorded/processed by a microcontroller which will also be tasked with controlling the position of the servos.

Goals and Objectives

1. The swing will be able to operate autonomously, building up amplitude overtime after receiving a small push from the user. 

2. The swing will be capable of maintaining a constant amplitude for a designated period of time

3. The device will visually resemble a child using a swing

4. Device will starts/stops user input (button)

Team Contacts

Ashley Chung - achung14@uci.edu

Garrett Lapalm - glapalm@uci.edu

AJ Leong - arleong@uci.edu

Sponsor/Advisor

Tryphon Georgiou - tryphon@uci.edu