Week Two (Nov 7 - Nov 13)

Over the past week, our team has met several times in an effort to finalize our Solidworks model. We wanted to complete the entire design, bill of materials, and step-by-step manufacturing plan before starting to build our machine so that we could make sure we could trade for or buy all our materials with plenty of time to get them shipped. We did run into a couple problems while designing our arm and front tray. The first problem arose when designing the arm.

During the entire process, we planned on using the 90° or 180° torsion spring that is provided in our kit, but we realized there was not a good way to connect either spring to the arm while ensuring durability. Therefore, we went online and purchased a spring hinge, which appears to be a perfect solution. This component combines our idea of having a spring and hinge separately attached, and makes the machining much easier to build.

Additionally, we realized that on the front tray of our machine, we want a 30° angled piece at the bottom of the tray to avoid having too much friction between the balls and the ground when pushing them around the table. We originally only had this angled piece on the back wall, but we realized that when our machine turns, we may have the same problem on the side walls. Therefore, we had to add this design to the entirety of the tray. We also thought it would be easier to just bend the 1/16" aluminum to make the 30° angled piece at the bottom, as opposed to attaching an extra component.  Thus, we had to redesign the tray on Solidworks and adjust our list of materials and manufacturing plan. This makes the construction of the front tray much easier, as we will just have to cut out the aluminum, bend it, and weld it together.

Now that our design is complete (pictured below), we will be able to start the construction of our machine this week. We plan to start building the driving mechanism in class on Monday, and use lab time on both Tuesday and Thursday to hopefully complete our most critical module. Once this driving mechanism is finished (and working!), we will begin the front tray construction. Because it is the most difficult component to construct, we do not intend to to start building the arm until the front tray is attached and we have gotten a better feel for working in the machine shop.