Robotic Assembly Line Class Challenge

For my and Ryan's assembly line challenge project, we were to print the number "2" on the dice. Beause the numbers 2 and 4 are on opposite sides of the cube, we combined our project with the group that was to print the number "4" on the cube (Gustavo and Nick Robles). From there we worked together to make a machine that could print the numbers 2 and 4 on opposite sides of the cube, with a very high success rate that was able to print the numbers 2 and 4 on all six of the die.

Here is a picture of our skethed design of our project:

How we solved the problem: We solved the problem using the Fischertechnik parts and the motors that are included. We used photoresistors and motors to the measure the light and with the values command the motors to turn and thus a red piece pushed the dice on both sides.


Here are the team challenges we got:
"Flash of Inspiration" - Brainstorm a solution for your section of the assembly line with a sketch.
"If you Build It..." - Implement a solution for your section of the assembly line.
"Proof is in the Pudding" - Implement a solution for your section of the assembly line that successfully operates with adjacent sections.
"Round and Round We Go" - Iterate on your initial implementation. Explain the challenge you discovered off the first effort and what you did to overcome it.
"Round and Round We Go... Again" - Iterate again on your implementation. Explain the next challenge you discovered with your design and what you did to solve it.
"Leave no Trace" - Return your fischertechnik to their appropriate storage locations/clean your work space.

My own individual achievements that I received are:
"Share It" - Provide feedback (Sustain, Change, Question, Idea) for another team. Who did you provide feedback to and what was it? We provided feedback with our surrounding groups (Nikki and Morgan, and Jon Henry and Nick Wiley), because we had to coordinate how our projects would be compatible with one another.
"Keep the Customer in Mind" - Your blog post is formated in a readable, professional manner. Writing is short and concise. Spacing is used to break up thoughts/concepts. Lists and/or bullet points are used as appropriate. No "monolithic" paragraphs.
"Nice One!" - Identify a student from outside of your team that was most helpful to your efforts. Be specific about how they were helpful. Marco helped us with aligning the drop to transfer the dice to the following team.
"Helping Hand" - List a student that you helped outside of your team. How were you helpful to them? I helped Jon Henry get his part of the assembly line set up when he needed a lot of help.
"And the Winners Are..." - Recognize class participation by selecting one person other than yourself for each of our five activity awards (Initiative, Sportsmanship, Collaboration, Humor, ...what's the fifth one we have up on the board?!) Improvisation is the fifth one we have on our board. Initiative - Gustavo. Sportsmanship - Jon Henry. Collaboration - Nikki. Humor - Robles.

Lever Activity

Today we experimented with finding different force measurements at different points of a lever with a weight hanging from the end. The x axis represents the distance from the edge of the lever in centimeters, and the y axis represents the force that it takes to keep the lever level in Newtons.

Maching Control Capstone Project

Achievements:

Marble Sorting (some achievments scored multiple times):Sort one marble (x1)
Sort two marbles (x1)
Sort three marbles (x1)
Sort four marbles (x1)
Sort four marbles (x2)
Sort five marbles (x1)
Sort five marbles (x2)
Sort five marbles (x3)
Systems (not including motor or piston used to charge your pressure vessel):Use one motor

Total: 9 out of 12 We were unable to use a valve because we were one short, so we used all motors.

Pictures:
1. Close up of the four motors that push the glass marbles.
2. Final project with Ryan in the background.
3. Unfinished project.
4. Program we used in RoboPro for our marble sorter.

Engineering Program Investigation

College/University of interest: I haven't looked seriously at colleges yet, but so far I would definitely love to go to a UC or tech school, perhaps UC Davis or Cal Poly. I know UC Davis has a great engineering program, and I also know that Cal Poly has a good aerospace engineering program, which is the field that I want to get into.

Why does this institution appeal to you?: It appeals to me because the UC and tech schools are very prestigious and are great schools. Also, most of them have great engineering programs.

Which engineering program is most interesting to you and why?: Definitely aerospace engineering. Even as a little kid I was interested in airplanes and spaceships, and as a kid I wondered how they work and what makes them do what they do.

Which undergraduate engineering elective is most interesting? Describe the course and its appeal to you: The engineering elective, again, would have to be aerospace engineering. Like I said earlier, it interests me the most. I would love to take one or more engineering courses in college. In an aerospace engineering class, their goal is to educate the students about aerospace engineering with a written aspect and a hands on aspect. Here is a link to the aerospace engineering course description at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo: http://aero.calpoly.edu/about/

I would love to go into the subfield of aerospace engineering listed on the website linked above called aircraft and spacecraft design.

Glider Challenge: Design Phase

1. Our final design is the white and blue hanglider second from the far left.

2. 1) What's the challenge? The challenge is to build an efficient glider given the materials of some balsa wood, glue, and tissue paper.

2) Brainstorm solutions:
-What are the rules of brainstorming? (oxymoron) I'd say there are no rules to brainstorming; the only thing that would even come close to being a rule would be "nothing rediculous", but that would defeat the purpose of brainstorming, as brainstorming is listing anything and everything that comes to mind when confronting a problem.
-List your ideas Hanglider, stealth bomber design, airplane design
-Sketch at least two of them

3) Specify:
-Criteria Has to be able to fly, has to have wings, should be designed to achieve the most hangtime and distance, should be somewhat accurate
-Constraints (be specific about materials available) Only given a few materials, I don't know the exact amount of materials, but I could guess that we got about 3-4 square feet of tissue paper, and maybe a total of 1.5 meters of balsa wood, weight, must be hand thrown

4) Develop Solutions:
-Sketch (with labels)

Bonus) Prototype with Paper
We made a prototype with the yellow plastic arms from the robo kits (picture of the prototype is included in my previous glider blog post).

3. As far as results go, our glider did pretty well despite our terrible and fatal test runs. We finished 3rd in distance and 1st in hangtime. If we did this again, I think we would defnitely change the wing size, as the stregnth of the balsa wood was not enough to support the massive wing size, and other groups with more of an airplane approach with smaller, more rigid wings seemed to work better than ours.
Worked with Ryan.

Glider Challenge

Before you're ready to "compete" with your glider, you probably want to try your design out and see how it goes. Use this format for collecting notes.

What did you learn from your test flight?We learned that our wings were too big and that the balsa wood frame was not as sturdy as we thought, and not nearly sturdy enough to support the size of the wings.

What are your goals for your glider and how will you adjust your design in order to help it better meet them?
We will try to fix the glider, but I'm not sure that it will work seeing as almost the whole frame is broken in several places. Definitely going to be a hard fix if it's even possible.

Here is an extensive gallery of pictures that were taken during the construction of our project:

:

We just tested our gliders today (April 8). Turns out, we actually did pretty well, we got first place in hangtime and third place in distance, which of course is much higher than I had ever imagined for our design, given how much it failed when we tested it last time. 

Worked with Ryan.

Egg Drop Challenge - Iteration #1

Total # of Achievements Earned: 23

The above pictures are part one and two of our "Materials List". I split the sheet into two pictures so it would be more legible. The second picture is a decision matrix that we used to determine which egg drop design we would use.

The above picture is a picture of the paper that we used to draw out all the possible options that we could choose while building our egg drop idea.
Idea Generation Achievements Total: 23

Brainstorming (4)
-Create a sketch of one possible solution. Include labels.
-Create a sketch of another possible solution. Include labels.
-Create a sketch of a third possible solution. Include labels.
-Use a decision matrix to justify the approach you chose.

Material Prep (2)
-Generate a list of materials required for build day.
-Document a plan to ensure materials are brought in on block day.



Build Achievements

Material Size: (2)
-Your materials fit inside a printer paper box
-Your materials fit inside a shoe box
Material Weight: (5)

(your egg is not included in material weight)
-Your materials weigh less than 500 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 300 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 200 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 150 grams.
-Your materials weigh less than 100 grams.


Drop Achievements

Drop Accuracy: (2)
-You hit the butcher paper!
-You hit inside the third ring!

Egg Resilience: (6)
-Your egg broke but the yolk remained intact.
-Your egg cracked but the yolk stayed inside and intact.
-Your egg cracked but was still together.
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)
-Your egg didn't break in any way! (awarded three times)


Calculation Achievements (0)



Communicate Results Achievements (0)



Other Achievements (2)
-Help set up the Bullseye.
-Design an Achievement Mr. Olson approves for next year's Egg Drop Challenge.



Some designs that did well in our class were ours, of course, Michael and Ocheer's, and Brett's. We could've done better in accuracy and weight, so I would have improved those possibly if we had had more time. As far as accuracy was concerned, I don't believe that the target was in the ideal location. It was too far off the ledge so even if you reached out as far as you can and dropped something on a line it wouldn't hit the bullseye. Also, there was a bit of a breeze the day we dropped the eggs, and that was obviously a factor.