Clothing Vac ft. Barbie

Devlog #2:

I wasn’t able to get time logged for 3D modeling the frame of Clothing Vac (I want to rename her soon), but I did log the process of cutting it up into bits that fit onto my 3D printer’s bed. This unfortunately took quite long due to my novice skills in CAD, but on the plus side, 3D modeling is getting more and more natural to me every day!

Below is my cut-up 3D model and the inspiration for this project, the shoe vacuuming robot from Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. The reason my bot has an extended slot area on the back is because I’m using a mini-conveyor to sort clothing into light vs. dark colors, and that space is for the conveyor.

It’s my first time working with Raspberry Pi, and I also decided to research everything electronics-related on my own and get individual components instead of starting off with a kit 🥹 BUT IT WORKED OMG IT WORKED!!!! Cytron motor driver (never even heard of Cytron but okay), Greartisan motors (Amazon-recommended and the specs looked okay), TCS34725 RGB sensor (this is a bit more mainstream phew), etc.

I wired everything up and tested some basic code for the motors, ultrasonic sensor, color sensor, and camera, and I got some threshold values down.