6.6 Conclusions and Future Work

Conclusions

The project accomplished our objective and focus of imitating the human-like movement of fishing. Although there are many things that could be improved, one main thing that should be improved is the settings on our robot. During our final demonstration, the automatic sector of our robot was out due to the power of the motor. A combination of the robot requiring too much effort to perform the casting motion, and our motor not being powerful enough, caused our final demonstration to run backward. Overall, the project performed correctly in the mechanical aspect. Finally, the process of design, manufacturing, and analysis allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the topics learned in this course. 

Lessons Learned

1. Understand that 3-D Printed materials are not always exact and press fits might vary based on the material and the use of it. 
2. To add to our first lesson, we learned that although 3D printing is helpful, some things, such as gears, would be more efficient and effective if purchased.

Future Work

In the future, we would like to work on things such as Bite detection, Integrative fish detection, and creating a bait "robot" that mimics the motion of live bait. These next steps could be achieved by integrating a microcontroller such as an Arduino. Aside from this, most of these additions could also be achieved using a second motor.

Tips for Future Groups

• Purchase your Gears!
• Gather all materials early on.
• Give yourself ample time to work on prototyping and make sure to leave room for error.
• Assign roles to teammates. This will allow you to not only work faster but also not have many people working on one task. 

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our gratitude to the TIW staff for being understanding and always willing to help. Additionally, we would like to acknowledge the invaluable support provided by our professor, Dr. Meredith Symmank, and teaching assistants, Aayush Parikh and Connor Hennig. Finally, we want to express our appreciation to the TIW facility and all the resources they provided.