The Spongebot is a robot that would clean up liquid spills for those unable to do so themselves.
The problem was that older people can find it hard to lean down to clean up a spill. The success criteria for this project are it can consistently clean up liquid spills and is easy to use with minimal bending down from the user. Some of the restraints are that it could be hard to apply the force to sponge, or not having proper way to stop.
With our first prototype it quickly became apparent that we simply had to create a scrubbing motion with the motors. We achieved this by using long brackets that would roll against the motor in a way that it could do that perpetually. The robot needed to stay still to be functional so we put constrained wheels on the back so that the friction of the rubber would keep it still.
We believe that our robot has achieved a proof of concept for its intended purpose and could theoretically clean spills with less leaning down from those who have trouble doing so (i.e. the elderly or disabled). We initially thought we had more time than we did, leading to our robot being not as polished as we would have hoped. If done again, we would have worked more efficiently and gone through more stages of prototyping.
