THE MID SEMESTER PROGRESS REPORT

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

DEPARTMENT OF

MECHATRONICS ENGINEERING

MECHATRONICS SYSTEM DESIGN

MCT 4125

MID SEMESTER PROGRESS REPORT

Title: The Transporter


Members:

Enaliza Anuar (0611300)

Nur Hasnaa Che Awang (0537840)

Anandya Ellianti Abdul Gani (0627194)

Siti Nur Shuhada Mohd Fauzi (0624800)


Section: 1


Lecturer’s Name: Dr Wahyudi Martono


Date of Submission: 21st January 2010


INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, we can see that there are many buildings built up to four floors. These buildings commonly are not provided with elevator. Thus people need to use stairs to go up and down the building. This is not a problem for people who are staying there and not carrying any loads while climbing the stairs up to the fourth floor. However, it will be a problem for people who have to carry loads by using the stairs especially for the cleaners that need to carry garbage downstairs. An elevator would be the best solution to help them. An elevator or lift is a vertical transport vehicle that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building. They are generally powered by electric motors that either use drive traction cables and counterweight systems, or pump hydraulic fluid to raise a cylindrical piston.

In this project, we are designing an elevator that we will call transporter, just to differentiate it with the elevator that is used to carry people. This transporter is used to carry loads such as garbage for cleaners and heavy things for students. This product will be mainly introduced at mahallah (hostel) because there is no elevator provided there. In designing the transporter, we are considering the loads, mechanism to go up or down, sensors used to stop the transporter at respective level, stability, compatibility, power consumption and also the construction of the transporter. We also did some research on how the transporter is being built by using the elevator concept. From the studies, we have decided to design the transporter by considering the parameters, advantages and disadvantages of the product.

We also did several interviews to collect the information and data which will provide the customers’ need to us, based on the problems they are facing and the introduction of our idea. From the result, we conclude and combine all the needs in order produce a product that will meet our customers’ needs and expectations. The next step is to generate the concept of our transporter. Here, we need to design the product and then choose the best design based on criteria listed. This method is important to ensure that we consider other designs first before we select the one that will work best for us.


PROBLEM STATEMENT

The cleaners need to carry the rubbish from upper floor to ground floor every day using the stairs, and the students also need to carry their loads while moving out from the old room to a new room especially in the beginning of the semester and at the end of semester.

OBJECTIVE

To help cleaners to transport daily garbage
To help students to transport heavy things

ADMINISTRATIVE TASK

Work Breakdown Structure -> refer to blog
Linear Responsibility Chart -> refer to blog
Gantt Chart -> refer to blog

CONCEPT GENERATION

Mission statement:

Our mission is to produce a product that can be used to help cleaners to transport daily garbage or students to transport their heavy things from the upper level to the desired level or vice versa.

1.The transporter moves vertically up and down.
2.The transporter is able to carry loads up to 1kg.
3.The transporter will be operated using push button.


Customers’ needs list:

1.Customers need a device that can help them to transport garbage and personal belongings.
2.Customers need a big transporter since there are many rubbish produce per level which is around 5-10kg.
3.Customers need a container to put the garbage to prevent the plastic bag from torn if using a hook.

Target specification:

1.Operating distance 100cm
2.Container size 10X10cm
3.Maximum load 1kg
4.Mass of the container 0.5kg

Proposed design:-> refer to blog

Pugh’s method for elevator mechanism: -> refer to blog

Chosen model: model 2

Pugh’s method for sensor:-> refer to blog

DISCUSSION

Our first task which is the administrative task has been done in the first week. We have constructed the linear responsibility chart that will remind us of our individual responsibilities. We have constructed it so that all jobs are equally distributed among us. Then we made the Gantt Chart as a guide for us to successfully complete this project. We finish all these administrative tasks within the first week.

In the second week, we have planned to do some background research and we have found that there are several similar projects like us. We have studied how other teams have built their elevator and then we tried to come up with our own idea. This then lead us to continue with our concept generation task in the following week.

In completing the concept generation task, we have to do a questionnaire for cleaners and students in the mahallah to know their difficulties and needs in transporting the garbage and belongings. We then conducted the interview and analyzed the results to obtain the customers’ needs list. From there, we started to do some sketches of our initial design and came up with all the possible alternatives to do the elevator mechanism and the stopping of the elevator.

There are four alternatives for the elevator mechanism. The first alternative is just by using a pulley and a rope. The second alternative is adding a vertical column that will guide the movement of the basket. The third alternative is by using two vertical columns to support the basket and also to make movement of basket smoother. The last alternative is by adding two more vertical columns to form a cube-shape like support that will firmly hold the basket. We used Pugh’s method to decide which alternatives is the best for us and the result is the second alternative because it fulfills most of the criteria.

In stopping the elevator, we have come up with three possibilities and they are reed switch, limit switch and motion detector. After constructing the Pugh’s method, we have found that the best option for us is to use reed switch.


CONCLUSION

In conclusion, our project is 30% complete. We have done the concept generation and selection. From this task, we have decided to choose Model 2 for the elevator mechanism and to use reed switch as the sensor to help the elevator stop at the level we want. We hope that we are able to do our next task in the following week and further complete our project successfully.