The structure building and assembling was made mostly in mdf and pieces of wood. The pieces cutting and main assembling was made with the help of a team members’ father, who has the right tool to deal with mdf.
The assembling took a lot of work and several tests and changes were made along the way. Such as testing how the mechanism would attach with the turning handles. Checking if it was possible to build it entirely in wood was another task done and proven to work.
Below we have some views of the structure:
Turnstile panel front view
Turnstile side view
Turnstile panel front view
Turnstile opening view
A test made by hand was made to verify the flow of the mechanism:
Turnstile internal mechanism
With the main structure ready, the installation of the components began. This was no simple task as some measurements where off due to construction being made all by hand and few precision tools. Some holes were not the size we expected, like the numeric keyboard, where we had to rely on estimations based on the product size description from the shop to design the structure. Other holes were simply off by a few milimeters, so a lot of sanding were made to accomodate the components.
The servo motor position were needed to change from design due to the space and mechanism handling. In the process of creating a base to hold the servo motor, more screws were needed to be bought.
Servo motor fixed in a base
Another change to the project made to accomodate the IR sensor was the creation of an L shaped structure in mdf to hold the component in place, just above the turnstile mechanism to check it’s presence or not.
L shaped structure to hold IR sensor