Brijm
Lifetime Supporting Member
ASSUMING
This in my opinion is way too complicated and expensive for a school project. You need to scale it back. First thing I would throw out is random size blocks. Make em standard size - you have enough challenges
My experience with PLCs is do not worry too much about the programming - that is really the "simple" part. The complicated part is the sensors and actuators and
selecting the correct ones
Dan Bentler
I disagree Dan, If you can program a palletizing robot, then programming it to make a choice based on three different blocks is relatively simple. Once the logic is done for one, then repeating it two more times, with a different variable shouldn't take long.
As to the expensive part, I'll assume, that the robot is already there, and probably the PLC and the sensors.
And for the blocks, as daba said, if you need to pick up moving blocks, then it does add a degree of difficulty. If you have to keep track of multiple moving blocks that passed the sensor, then even more. What I'm picuring, is the blocks coming to a physical stop at the end of a conveyor. At the physical stop, there are three capacitive proxes, stacked at different heights.
I like the project, as I could see this sorting automation as a definate real world situation.
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