ELEVENTH WEEK

Last Thursday, two of our partners made the english presentation, especifically; Iker B. and Unai.
They talked about Dual Vocational Training. It's consists about studying in the morning at the school until 1:00 p.m, go to eat lunch and the go to your company to work about 3-4 hours. The main purpouse is to gain experience on the laboral world.

The company pretends that after the student finishes the contract and the practises, he/she signs a new contract if the student its been working well. The companys make big efforts and the give opportunities to form people and also they spend money on them. The Dual Formation is not required and everyone have the chance to make the intreviews to get a place on a company.

In our group, the only partner who is in Dual is Iker B. and he is working in Alga. since last summer. He started working with the engineers on the dessign section with a engineer as his instructor learning how to dessign pieces. After that, he moved to maintenance learning how to fix machines and how to make the preventive maintenace of the machines. He also had some sporadics works like mounting wardrobes or painting walls and doors. Now he is going to start learning how to weld, he doesn't do anything like this before but he is optimistic.

Last week we started the new challenge. This one is about programming a station wich classifies pieces of diferent colour, they are moved by mechanical arms with air suction cups. The black pieces are expelled to the area of waste. The orange and the silver pieces take an elevator and a cylinder throws to a spinning plate trough a tape. Then the plate spins a quarter and simulates the drilling.

When another piece arrives, the plate spins another quarter and the piece simulates the stamping. The plate spins another quarter and this time the crane with air suction cup will take the piece and move it to each colors tube.

We also started doing the exercises we have to send to our teachers, there are a total of 4. Most of them are already finished and checked on the PLC.  We have to finish this challenge on the second week we come back from christmas holidays. We will continue writing this blog after the new yearand holidays.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

TENTH WEEK

This week we were supposed to have finished the project and do the exam on Friday like the previous exams, but this time we have it Thursday, due to the fact that, Friday was the “Spanish Constitution Day” or “Día de la Constitución Española” that's why we had Friday free. 

The exam was about doing two different programs and communicate each one with the other by MPI (Multi Puntula Interfase) which is the most simple way of communication between PLC’s or by Profibus that is quite harder than the previous but more useful. MPI it was easier to us to comprehend because the only thing that we had to do the communication between PLC’s was complete a table with data that we want to transfer to the other using “Global Data”. In the other hand, to use Profibus we had to configure the PLC’s so that one was designed as “Master”, giving him control over the PLC’s that were renown as “Slaves”. 

Final the exam was easier than we thought it was going to be so we think that all the team is going to pass.

In Monday we did the presentations they weren’t very significant and when all the presentations were done we started with the next project, but we change places at the last 2 hours so we didn’t do anything that day.

This Thursday we are going to do presentations about different issues like: 

• Future Cars
• Business Plan   
• Dual
• Internet

And so on…

We hope to do well.

NINTH WEEK

Hello bloggers followers, how are you doing this week? This week we continue with the fifth challenge of communitation of PLC´S. We expect to finish the challenge next Thursday also having a exam. We don't know if we will pass the exam but we are optimistic.

On Thursday we tried to comunicate the models using profibus protocol. It was dificult for us to understand data trasmission but with the help of videos and teachers we could communicate 2 of the 4 models.We also continued making the MPI exercises. The exercises were very difficult and very hard to understand how to do it.
Also in English class, we made some grammar exercises and some practical listening classes.

On Friday our teanmate Iker Bilbao deciphered how to integrate the 4 models.  But we had problems with the communication cables because we didn´t have enough or they broken. While the other partners were doing MPI protocol exercises, the couldn't figure it out how to solve the second MPI exercice.
Also in the subject of Company, we have made cooperative creation exercises.

This Monday we have continued performing MPI communication exercises and finally we have finished the communication by Profibus protocol between the 4 models and we started trying to make MPI with the 4 models. We continued with the second exercise of MPI but we will finish it for tomorrow.
 In the first recess activities have begun in the football field covered by the Basque Olympics. We finished 3rd position out of 4 participants because we made some mistakes.

On Tuesday we finally finished the second exercise of MPI and we continued making the next ones. We started making the X_PUT and X_GET of MPI exercises. We also won the Tug of war competition twice on the Basque Olympics. Today we continued making the Company exercises and tasks.

On Wednesday we started practising and studying for Thurday's exam because it seems very difficult and also we finished most of the part of the challenge. We finished yesterday's exercise but there are a couple of exercises missing but we will make them when we will start the next challenge.

EIGHT WEEK

21st of November
Today, at the first hour we have English class, and we make different exercises about reading exercises and dialogue exercises. Then we have class with Jon and our group continue working with the challenge. In the challenge we have to make four differnt project, that they have to comunicate among themselves. There are two differnet method to conect but we have to conect them with MPI and profibus. We have a lot of work yet, we are going to continue working hard.

22nd of November
This day, we make an exceptional work all the group, we advanced a lot, one of four project we finished, it wasn´t easy to complete but we make it. We have to make 3 projects yet, but today we conform finishing one. The followings days, we need to finish with the others projects and start comunicating, because we haven´t got any idea how to communicate, so we need to copilate information and make it. He is making for us a lot of work but we need to continue keep forward.

25th of November
Today monday, we have had problems on all sides, we have not advanced. We haven´t start conectig projects yet, we pass all the hours making the three project, but because of many problems with PLCs, we dont finish any proyect. The time is running out for us we have to get workin hardly, because  otherwise it will not give us time to finish it. We hope that tomorrow is a better day, and at least we finish some project

26th of November
Today was a fantastic day, we reorganise again, and two people from the group start searching information about PLC´s communication and the other three continue making projects. Today we finish two more, so we need to make one more to finish all projects. We fix yesterday problems, and we make a very good team work. Today we demostrate that we are a able to finish at time, and to keep forward in bad situations. Although we have a good day, tomorrow we need to continue working hard.

27th of November
Today, we finish the last project early in the morning so, we have all put up with communications, the half of group with MPI, is one method to communicate, and the other half with Profibus, is another different method. we haven´t advance a lot, we centrate searching the information, but we haven't start comunicating. We don´t have the time in our side, thats why we have to finish the communication exercises and then communicate all the project. I hope to finish this challenge at time.

SEVENTH WEEK

This week we continue with the fifth challenge,  we  think this is the most difficult challenge we have done at moment. Last Friday we started doing the pogrammation of the four panels individually, although we had some problems because the programm we used is quite old and this cause some problems with the emulator and the program charger. After the weekend on Monday we continue with the programation of the panels and Ander started writing a document about the investigation of communications.

 On Tuesday we finished the bussines class subjects. Our idea is a lock that is unlocked by
fingersprint or voice, based on this idea we had to do different exercises; we had to do a questionnaire abot what our clients can ask about the product, and after doing the questionnaire and ask those questions to different types of people whether young, old ...With the answers we had to make a report based on the data collected. We also had to make a poster, a comic and an announcement to advertise our product. As for the challenge, we continue doing the same as Monday

On Wednesday Iker G. and Xabier finished their programming part and they started helping Ander to finish the investigation of communications. Unai and Iker.B didn't finish because their part of the program was more complicated.

When they finish with the programming we will start with the communications MPI and Profivus with the objective of making the four PLCs that are the four different programs that we have done communicate in different ways.We also have to do the exercises related to MPI and Profivus, that seem to be quite complicated the group before us doing the challenge four still continue with the unfinished exercises.

SIXTH WEEK

This week we finished the 4th challenge,the exam and presentation.

On Thursday there was called a strike by the teachers, they voted and decided not to going to a strike.

On Friday we took an exam and was quite difficult but we don´t know yet what mark we get.

On Sunday we had general elections. Unai had the luck to be table president in Amorebieta.

Monday was the last day of the challenge. We presented our  fourth challenge project to the whole class. Then Jabi, our tutor, evaluated the checklists and we showed the work done during the challenge. As a team we are happy with the results of our work and the impressions that Jabi has transmitted to us. As for the exam and individual grade,  we are waiting until they correct us and tell us the results.
To end this challenge we need to finish with the objetives set in the subject of the "Company" and thus be able to obtain the full grade.

Luckily, the labor conflict between teachers and employers has been resolved and the strike has been called off.

This Tuesday we started the fifth challenge . In this previous challenge we worked with Omron, on this one we will work with step 7 of Siemens.
Consists of 4 automated tables communicated between them. We have to make the programs individually of each the table and be able to communicate with each other by profibus. They are tables with neumatic cylinders and position sensors that perform different sequences. Classmates who have previusly worked on this challenge have had problems with profibus. We hope to solve it.
To program we have to use is a virtual machine and the vmware program because the PLC are old and use the windows xp operating system and the class computers have the windos 10 installed.

We have until Thursday, December 5 to finish this fifth challenge. We hope to finish it for the date and meet the proposed requirements.

The bad weather has arrived and we hope not to get sick so we can come to class and continue learning.

FIFTH WEEK

In this challenge, the fourth one, we need to make a production line using  Omrom simulator, Sysmac Studio, frequency Variator, HMI panel view screen, PLCs and more. We have to finish the screen and something more to finish this challenge, so we have to hurry finishing the work.

In this challenge we have two differents parts, the first part consists  making a bottle company line production. First we have to make the labelled, the bottle start on a band moving to a clinder, which will put the label to the bottle and then continue moving until arrive to a machine, which will fill the botle with a delicious cola, and  finishes putting the plug.

On the other hand, we have the second part that consists in another production line too. But this time, the production is about the packaging toys. The line starts on the initial sensor, which detects the boxes that moves in front of them. Some seconds later, the following sensor detects what type are the boxes and a little more forward a servo send it to a one direction or the other one.

                                                                                             

Since the first day we advanced  very quickly, grouply we organised very well, and that gives good results, but we have not finished yet.

HMI panel view screen, was very funny to make it. We have done different pages like start, operator, maintenance, register, alarms, recipes...

In this case, the programing was difficult, we have had too many difficulties: Omron programm is old and useless, but in our group we are very workers so we adapted to the program and we get an excepcional results, making a line as God commands.

In company, we are working without Ander, is an fundamental piece for a group, so it's more difficult to progress without him. But we are trying to do as better as possible. To replace Ander, we recrut Mikel Lopez, our new teamate in a company group named Novimi. We are selling a modern type of bolt, because we belive  that  this idea can change people lifes and the future. Our idea is about creating a modern bolt to install in houses, doorways, and whatever you want. 

Now, we are doing a market studio about the compentence.

FOURTH WEEK

We started the fourth week with an english exam divided in to parts: in the first part we had to write a letter addressed to Daniel Irazola in which we are a member from the marketing team of an UK company and we are presenting our new robot and operative system. In the other part, we had to explain what does it consist of our course and argue about the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology used in it.

The rest of the days we have been working to solve all the problems that we have in the different parts of the project, for example:

With the example of the panel that we have made there were a couple of animations that represent a simulation of a bottle labeling line and we didn’t know which were the parameters that we have to adjust.

We have to create different levels of security using user accounts in which each one of them have a different role in the company like administrator, supervisor… Each of 
them have distinct level of accessibility to the configuration of the system. 

At some point our variator was reset so we have to re-adjust it and we don´t know which was the reason for the reset yet, we hope it doesn’t happen again.

In what it concerns “Business” classes, each group presented an idea to improve Durango in the “Ekigune” competition and two groups managed to reach the finals and staying in these seconds winning a monetary price for its originality.
Also, this week the blood donating bus has come and as always many of the students have donated their blood to contribute, but one of the donors had the bad luck of getting dizzy after donating and hit his head, what made him go to the hospital. Luckily it’s better now. 

Being criticals with the challenge, I think that we started better than with the first dare, we have  divided the work better to be more efficient and focus to finish as soon as possible to have the opportunity to upgrade the project. Furthermore, we share what we have done almost every day to be able to understand all the parts of the project: the HMI panel, such as the variator and especially the program.

THIRD WEEK

Last week we started a new challenge and after we made the presentations we changed the site to another table. Another new challenge with new knowledge we will adqcuire. In this challenge we will try to not to make the same mistakes we made on the last challenge. We didn't distribute the time properly, because we wasted time doing some things when we needed after.

On the new challenge we have to use the OMROM program to comunicate  with the variator and the screen. On the screen we have to simulate the labelled and heat seal of a bottle in a tape with sensors using a variator and a servomotor. We don't know if we will use the servomotor because the last team didn't use it and the teachers have to test it.

On the first days we started checking the mounting and looking the parts of the mounting and trying to understand the challenge and what was each part's operation.

Then we continued using the variator and understanding his function. We also made the 10 exercises that were proposed. The first five were easy but the sixth was more hard to solve. We spent two days solving the exercise but we finally did it. We wrote the exercises in Drive.

We also started using the OMROM Sysmac Studio program. It's different to other programs we used before. This program is more difficult than the others because we don't have many recources to how to use the program. The information appeares in Moodle, it's a little bit confusing because it doesn't explain it clearly. We are making the screen part, we are following a PDF uplouded in Moodle and its been confusing as we said before.

Now we are translating from written text to estructured text. At first it seems imposible to understand but with the help of the teachers, we are advancing and learning.
We also started with the programming of the mounting and we are taking big steps.

We have to continue working  on these things over the week and try to finish all of them as early as posible. We started doing a Gantt chart to check day by day how are dealing with things we have to do. If the exercise is active we fill a block of color behind the day, and he have to do it everyday.
This is an easier way to organize ourselves and work with a better order.

SECOND WEEK

We worked this week in the comunication of two PLC in TIA PORTAL V13. We finally comunicated both PLCs. It cost a lot of effort and time. We also had some different problems. First, we could't control the air system because the controller is broken and there wasn't a reclacement, so when the mechanical arm take the piece and move it to the tape, it did it very strongly and that caused that sometimes the tape's motor stopped.

Also the robot didn't worked and we couldn't introduce it in the challenge. It was a little bit disapointing. The robot looked the coolest thing of the challenge and we were enthusiastic about using it. Now we barely now about programming and using a Mitsubishi robot. We tried to start making the exercises but they were vey difficult and the didn't have enough time to finish all.

Another problem was that we didn't have the enough sensors to detect black and red pieces. So the detector we had it, we use it to the black piece and for the red pieces, we made an input on the PLC and the openened the barrier activating a switch.

We also had problem with the cables and tubes. The cables weren't numbered and we didn't know where the were conected. Some tubes were also wrong conected to the solenoid valve and because of that, the system didn't work at the beginning.

We also had to move the ramp where the pieces end because when they were on the tape and the barrier threw, they didn't fall correctly so we had to move it.

There were some problems but we did some things right. The camera worked perfectly and we learnt a lot about the In-Sight camera program. We also finished all the camera exercises because the were very easy except last exercise, it was so difficult that even the teachers didn't know how to do it.

We also made the screen for the mounting, the screen was easy to make it but we didn't have the enough time to finished like we want to.

Finally we presented the challenge to the teacher and he decided to approve the challenge or not. We were lucky because we didn't make any exam but we will make it in the rest of the challenges.
We also made a presentation in front of the class and we also made a demostration of the mounting.

FIRST WEEK

Unai, Ander, Iker I, Iker B and Xabier forms the group of XUAI. We've started with te 1st challenge. The objetive of this challenge is do an chain sistem where diferent colour pieces(black, silver and red) are randomly put in a mechanical tape. In this mechanical tape are many sensor to classify the pieces in diferent ramps. In the event that there are four pieces on a ramp the mechanical tape stoped and a robotic arm take the pieces and sort them in a specific way according to the color.








This week we have managed to make one of the panels and the second we just need to make some small adjustments to the program to have it done too. Moreover, we have to program a small Siemens HMI to control both panels. Furthermore, we have to communite both PLCs and we are trying to fix that problem.

Also the robot has begun to move but as every time it is turned off, it is unset so we have problems to make it work properly. We don´t know if the robot will work because it´s the most entertaining part of the challenge.

We are gonna continue working very hard to complete this challenge with very good marks.

LET´S GO XUAI, LETS DO IT!!!!!!!