2. Design Process (GC)

Our team began by brainstorming ideas for a glasses cleaning mechanism that could create a figure-eight motion with a single motor. We considered various concepts, including a wiper like mechanism, but ultimately decided that a single motor would not only be most cost effective but would satisfy the project’s requirements of a complex linkage mechanism. We then started to trial and error a linkage system that could create the desired figure-eight using linkage simulation software. We kept altering the linkages’ position until we got a desirable pattern. From this point, we measured all of the linkages in the software and scaled them to our reference frame, an average pair of glasses. We scaled the non dimensional links in the program by 80% into mm. The “average pair of glasses” were Miles’ real glasses. All of the links were designed to our reference using CAD and would be later cut out of acrylic. Because we were cleaning fragile lenses, we decided to use a low voltage motor in our design that we could control using an Arduino. Sponges were bolted directly to the arm, and then more sponges glued on top of the bolt to remove the possibility of metal to glass contact. From here on, we referred to the same pair of glasses to design a base and attachment to the linkage mechanism wall.