puckman

We are using an H-Bot gantry system. It should work better than the cartesian because the moving load is now lighter. 

We 3d printed most of the parts to set the system on the air hockey table. The setup was relatively straightforward: we have 2 steel linear rods serving as the vertical rails. For the horizontal rails, we are using carbon fiber tubes which we deliberately chose because they are lighter than the steel linear rods.  The horizontal rail system and slides along the vertical rails with lienar bearings to reduce friction. The pusher is zip tied to bushings that slide along the horizontal rails. 

We attained a 40'' x 20'' air hockey table with airflow to attach the air hockey robot to.

We're going to use the Hbot mechanism used on 3d printers for moving the robot's handle.

 We've acquired the following components so far:

1. 2x NEMA 17 stepper motors 

2. 2x 8mm x 450mm linear rods (track for the vertical axes)

3. 2x 8mm x 500 mm carbon fiber tube (for a lightweight horizontal axis)

4. GT2 6mm belt

5. 2x linear bearings

6. 12x 623 bearings (for setting up the pulleys)

We've also 3d printed the majority of the support structures we'll need to set up the hbot mechanism