Actuator Experiementation — Jack Sinclair + Alex Alspaugh

Thermal Printer Test

For our actuator experiment, we decided to test our only actuator, the thermal printer. 

Thermal printers are commonly used for printing receipts and we wanted to ensure that we could get everything functioning as it should. To do this, we referenced the Adafruit Thermal Printer instructions. After installing the Adafruit Thermal Library and connecting the printer to a 9v power source via a wall adapter and then to our Arduino we ran the test program and to our pleasant surprise, everything functioned as it should. 

(The Final Output)

Actuator Experimentation - Jacob & Tim

We tested two parts of actuation for our project. First, we attempted to use the servo motor to focus our Polaroid camera. Second, we attempted to take a picture using the same servo motor. We experimented using different angles for the servo and different orientations of the polaroid. Our experimentation was key to determining how the Polaroid camera and the servo will fit together on our final housing mechanism.