It seems as if the windlasses were just too much for the laser cutter to handle and this past weekend, it breathed its final breaths (made its last cuts?)... for a little while now. Luckily enough, our next project did require lasers or cuts of any sort (I see you Professor Banzaert! ) However, before I move onto the new stuff, here are the measurements of the parts of my windlass.
382.72 cm^2 is pretty well below the 500cm^2 restriction I think... do we get extra points for awesome conservation of material? (we only printed once!!!)
On to the next project....
lego racers!!!
Yes!
Prior to really assembling our lego car, we spent a lot of time messing around with the gears to get a good feel for how they work and our options. We constructed many iterations of our lego car, changing not much besides the gear trains...
This what my calendar looks like this week...
(this doesn't include hw assignments/readings...just meetings, exams, etc)
Isn't the lighting in my room so gloomy? Just to clarify, the names of colleges on there are there because they mark the due dates for my brother's applications, that I am of course, helping him with. Being a big sister is SO much fun! Especially when my mother still hasn't got a clue about how college applications work... but I mean, I ended up here so I guess I did alright on my own last year! Today, walking my mother through how to print out the FAFSA was pretty stressful though (it took 10 minutes to explain to her how to open up and find the address bar in Google Chrome...). Of course, after that, I had to take a break...
... so I redecorated my bulletin board. It's been pretty bare since last semester...
bits from my art journal + some twine + mini clothespins + leftover trace paper + stuff lying around + 30 mins = that.
Above is my brainstorm sketch for the windlass. Although my partner and I didn't collaborate together during the brainstorm period due to the snowstorm, we had many similar ideas, interestingly enough. After discussing potential problems and the limitations of the material supplied, we finally decided on the following design.
The orange part is the base, that will span/sit on top of the "well". On the rods that run parallel to the plane of the base is where the string will be attached. Now, how it really works...
As you can see, there are disks connecting all the rods together. Some of them are tighter than others, pretty much acting as bushings. The important part though, is the part that can't be seen in the Solidworks/actual assembly. Within the green sides that are perpendicular to the base, there are smaller circular disks attached to the rods. The bigger disks that can be seen on the outside sit very tightly against the sides, thus keeping the smaller rotating disk stable. The bigger disk on the lefthand side is also attached to the rods in the same way as the others, but it also has a rod attached closer to the edge of the disk, thus acting as the handle to turn the entire contraption.
Despite having redone the assembly a few times in Solidworks, we kept making the windlass left-handed...
... and continued to do so in the non-virtual world as well...
Fortunately, our piece was pretty much symmetrical besides the large "handle" wheel. (**note, we did notice that we made it left handed in Solidworks but knew that it wasn't really an issue). Thus, when we piano-wired everything, we were able to 'fix' this minor issue. Finally, after much sanding...
In contrast to our first project, a 1D bottle-opener that was made from a single piece of Delrin, our next project requires a bit more than just one piece of plastic. Thus, we learned various methods of fastening and attaching in order to put one or more pieces together to create an assembly. The following is a quick pro/cons/features reflection of the four methods that we practiced in class.
heat staking.
Heat-staking is a process that connects two pieces of an assembly together by heating pieces until material fuses together. Somewhat similar to the notch & peg method of attaching, heat staking is comprised of two pieces of an assembly with one piece having a "peg" bit that goes into another piece. It is the "head" of the peg that is then heated to fuse the pieces together.
pros:
If done correctly, the result is unmovable and durable.
Ideal for joints that are not meant to move.
Allows for a slight degree of imprecision; is forgiving as long as pieces fit together.
cons:
Time consuming. Can take up to one minute per joint.
joint is completely unmovable.
piano wire.
To use piano wire to join two or more pieces together, one must drill a hole through all of the pieces to thread the piano wire through.
pros:
adjustable strength. can be hinge-y or completely unnmovable.
easy to do, doesn't necessarily require too much planning in SolidWorks compared to notches/heat staking/bushing
cons:
very time consuming
joints could possibly loosen (?)
notches + pegs This seems self explanatory... pros:
adjustable strength for the bond. can loosely fit, tightly fit, anywhere in between
cons
very easy to get wrong in SolidWorks/ due to variability of any particular piece of material.
bushings
rings of delrin around delrin rod to help hold a rod in place. pros
adjustable strength. like notch/peg, can loosely fit, tightly fit, anywhere in between
cons
also like notches + pegs, it is very easy to get wrong due to inaccurate measurements/variability of material, etc.
It was really fun, we got to do cute things with robots courtesy of Robodyssey. We programmed in BasicX, ladadada... the technical stuff is kinda boring I guess. Back to the point: as in any 'creative' course, we had to come up with a final project. There were many interesting final projects, like a soccer-playing robots, hot-air balloon things, motion-activated thingy ma-bobs, line-followers, there was even a really cool looking thing involving vibrating a non-newtonian fluid, etc, etc, etc. And the programming behind that is all very exciting of course, but my partner and I were more interested in other things... And if you read my bio (or the title of this blog post), you might guess what might be involved.
Yes. A Marshmallow Roasting Robot.
The following video is from the 2011 George School Robotics Open House where tons of people came and asked lots of questions about our robots ie what does that thing do, how did you do that, what is that thing, whats that thing etc. Lots of people, little time, lots of questions = TOO MUCH STRESS = me talking at high speeds and not really making much sense...
(sorry it's tilted)
But anyways, the whole thing is constructed from bits and pieces from different places ie. lab stands from the chem classroom, candles from some random bin, a bit of plastic with holes previously drilled holes in it that nobody really wanted to use, bamboo skewers from my kitchen drawer, marshmallows from the on campus fast-food joint... you get the idea. Of course, we went through many iterations (the flame-thrower on one of the first versions was activated by an IR sensor ie. how close you are to the sensor. unfortunately, it didn't differentiate between a marshmallow on a stick, and your face), but the end result was pretty satisfying. There are certain improvements that could have been made (if we had the resources/time) to make the robot more "high-tech" or at least function better (if you look carefully at the rotating disk you'll notice that the skewer isn't actually in the center). However, if you ask anyone that sampled the smores we made at the open house, I think you'd get an overwhelmingly positive response anyway. That might be attributed to my (genius) idea of smushing the chocolate into the center of the gooey-melted marshmallow to allow it to melt more before consumption... but of course, to get there, one would have to attain the perfect completely-heated-through-gooey-and-slightly-crispy-on-the outside-but-not-at-all-burnt-marshmallow that this robot made. All in all, I think even with the small flaws, the semi-ghetto nature/messy presentation, and the feeling of utter regret during the following afternoon lacrosse practices caused by over-consumption of smores, I'm still pretty proud of it.
Apparently my teacher was more interested in the flame thrower aspect of it though...
Following lots of virtual "gluing" together of rectangular parts in SolidWorks and a long struggle with a moody laser printer, here is our final piece!
When brainstorming ideas for our bottle opener, my partner and I focused solely on the functional aspects of the bottle opener, ie. the idea/aspects of a cantilever, and how certain features provided the bottle opener with ideal characteristics such as stability, durability, etc. After coming up with a few acceptable ideas and many weird ones, we selected the following four to compare via a pugh chart, which follows...
As you can see (not very clearly) from above, the left most designs seemed to be the most practical/had the "highest average". Although generally the highest average approach doesn't always produce the "best" product/design, since we only had to worry about function/durability, it was okay. In the end, we selected the leftmost design. Now, onto the aesthetics...
Introduction to Engineering. What does that even mean?
That was my big question going into this course. Of course, the /obvious/ answer is what's listed in the objectives on the course information sheet and a bit of common sense. How to apply an engineering design process. How to use SolidWorks. How to use a laser cutter, how to create models, and how important it is to NOT break any expensive equipment. But that's just the basics.
Don't get me wrong: that all sounds REALLY exciting to me (except for the possible breaking of expensive machinery which is absolutely terrifying/the laser cutter seems like a possible threat to my already extremely poor eyesight), but I'm more interested in what this course means to me as a part of my thus far very malleable future 'plan'... which at this point, has the structural stability of a play-doh snake molded by a four year old.
I mean, I've taken many courses that one might traditionally think of as a solid base for engineering. In high school, I took IB Calc, Robotics/Computer Programming, AP Physics... along with other semi-related things like AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Stats etc (now maybe I'm just getting engineering mixed up with nerd. wait is that offensive??). In college thus far, I took Calc II and Physics again, and am now currently enrolled in Multivar. Calc. My point is, my academic record seems to be an indicator that I might be well prepped for engineering. But, am I?
I don't know if I have the creativity it takes to be an engineer. I mean, I /know/ I'm creative... I want to be a studio art minor, which I would assume requires some type of creativity. But am I smart enough? Am I good enough at physics? At common sense? Is the way that I think conducive to a career as an engineer? Do I have that je ne sais quoi that it takes to be an engineer versus a researcher or "regular" scientist? I guess what EXTD160: Intro to Engineering means to me and what I want to get out of it isn't just a list of objectives.
Honestly, am I really that interested in engineering? Am I ready to commit to something? Or is it just another one of my random and somewhat fleeting obsessions? (I REALLY wanted to be a geologist from ages 8-12). I'm in college now though, and I'm supposed to start figuring out what I want to do with my life, and I guess taking this course is the first step.
.JPG)
