View of our team’s end effector design
The first engineering project assigned to students in the ENG1P13 course required designing, constructing, and coding an end effector mechanism attached to a Q-arm. The final goal for the end effector was to simulate a robotic arm used in a warehouse which could fulfill orders that customers could place.
Our team’s problem statement captured our final goal for this project:
“Design an end-effector that can efficiently pick up and sort objects, place them in respective positions, with swift motions, and without any slippage of objects, remains lightweight.”
A customer could create an account within the Pyzo IDE, this account would have a password which would be stored with encryption. After the account was created, the customer could scan barcodes that pertained to combination of different objects. Once a barcode was scanned, the Q-arm would reach for the objects which the customer ordered and place them in a bin. the customer could continue to scan barcodes until they were done. Once the customer indicated that they were finished, the software would print a receipt.
October 6th 2025 - October 13th 2025: Creation of Preliminary sketches and first discussion with group about possible ideas for mechanism design
October 13th 2025 - November 1st 2025: Creation and first iteration of CAD design
November 1st 2025 - November 15th 2025: Started creating functions for final warehouse code and continued to optimize CAD design with team. TA’s also provided advice during this time
November 15th 2025 - December 4th 2025: Final iteration completed, combined team warehouse code completed, interview and demonstration completed
As a team we collaborated to design, implement, and test a complete end effector + Q-arm system for the warehouse style object handling. Together, we tackled problem framing, concept selection, fabrication, testing (all iterations and coming up with refinements), and the final system integration. All members of the team were involved in conversation for refinements made to the end effector. The team also collectively integrated each individually assigned python functions into a single workflow. On the day of the demonstration, the entire team was seamlessly involved in the setup, fixing all complications that occurred on the day of. Apart from the final push, the entire team worked together during design studio check-ins alongside TA’s who helped with their guidance to procure a more refined end effector.
As the Subject Matter Expert (SME), I took primary responsibility for the technical depth and accuracy of both the mechanical aspects of this project, as well as the computing portion.
On the mechanical side; I completed the initial design concept which was voted to be implemented by the team. I took it upon myself to be responsible for most of the CAD, this pertained the creation of multiple iterations and research better ways of creating an end effector mechanism. With my research, I iteratively refined the mechanism’s geometry to improve the performance of the gripper. In the final days, our gripper was unable to keep ahold of anything past the bottle, I fixed this by completely redesigning the mechanism to extend past the provided end effector platform. This change gave more leverage to the arms which were then shortened to create more torque. In summary, during the final days, I made a complete redesign which allowed our gripper more success during the demonstration. Seeing how most of the CAD was my responsibility, I was also responsible for the exploded drawings and the drawings for all the individual IPT files that went into the final assembly.
On the computing side, I was responsible for the implementation of the customer_summary() function in python. This function reads order history, calculates the total spending and order counts, and then outputs a professional summary formatted for the user. I ensured that the function worked with boundary cases, was correctly functioning, and was formatted properly. I also ensured it integrated with the rest of the code so that it could be seamlessly combined with every other function and deliver a full order processing system.
Exploded Drawing Created By Me
Customer Summary Function Made By Me
Customer Summary Flowchart Created By Me
Autodesk Inventor
Python
P1 Module document
End Effector Platform and Fasteners File
Prussa 3D printer
This is the first engineering project I got to work on in university. This project shifted some assumptions I had about design. I always thought that an overengineered solutions with complex parts would be the best solution to any engineering problem, after all, there are so many real world examples out there like aircraft and car engines. At the start of the project, that's exactly where my mind went. I started thinking about all sorts of fancy things I could include in my design, from torque converters to springs for more clamping force. But the more I thought about it, in the real world, efficient solutions are more prized than complex ones. Which is why after spending hours trying to learn how to CAD cool stuff like rack and pinion powered mechanisms, I went back to good old-fashioned gears. I printed the first design, immediately noticed flaws; after fixing those I went to the second iteration, then the next, and with that more and more versions were born. By the end, I had a solution that was way simpler than what I initially had in mind, and the most important part was that it worked pretty well. I also underestimated how much of an impact small changes could have. When I found that the gripper was too weak to lift anything past the light bottle, instead of adding springs or rubber bands for more clamping force, I did some research. I found that if I altered my gear ratio and shortened the length of my arms, I could improve the torque. After those tiny iterations, I had a much stronger mechanism that didn't need a drastic upgrade.
Looking back, this project taught me to question how I've built things in the past and do a lot more research before I build something. This project also taught me the importance of iterating and fixing flaws. This process of trial and error optimized my designs over time and landed me a mechanism that I was proud of.