Bonus Blog Post to the rest of Team Barracuda

To the remainder of Team Barracuda,
Well as unsure as I am if you ladies will as see this or not noting that you have already each finished your individual reflections, I still wanted to get one final word out to you in a collective place. I wanted to give a note of thanks and give credit where it is due to all of you because I know I couldn't have done this all by myself as my personality sometimes likes to with projects (as indicated by the personality tests/evaluations we did in lecture during the first few weeks). Sure, it may have been absolutely chaotic at times, but in general I had a lot of fun getting to know each of you individually and I can't guarantee that would have happened had it not been for this class. From the late nights trying to finish things like hole placement at 10:30 pm, to the early 8 am's in the shop, I don't think I've ever had a team that's functioned more smoothly for a group project under these conditions. I wish you all the best of luck with finals over the next week as well as the next few years of school. Have a great summer and please do keep in touch. A big thanks again and until next time,
Jason

Individual Reflection: Jason Bruns

Jason Bruns

Final Reflection

ME 250 has easily been one of the biggest challenges I’ve had class wise so far here at the University of Michigan. In saying that though, I also think that it has been one of the most rewarding classes that I have taken. No longer is it just working problems on paper day in and day out, but things are now being applied to tangible items that I have had a part in building. It is crazy to look back at where we started with this class as just a simple strategy, then to see how it built up to a moving project. On top of that, it is also intimidating to realize how much more there still is to learn. However, I think that I am capable of succeeding in what I put my mind to over the course of my college career because of the base that ME 250 has given me.

            Coming into ME250 I had very little experience with manufacturing. The only things I have done by myself are the basic 1 and 2 programs at the Wilson center. While these two programs are something, they are obviously very limited because they only go as far as cutting and drilling. It was intimidating at the beginning of the semester looking at some groups that had a lot of experience, while others had none. Things went well though and I really think that I learned a significant amount about manufacturing from working in the shop. The fact that our group got an early start helped a lot when it gave us time to ask Mark or Bob for assistance/advice when we needed it.

            I also think that I became more proficient with computer aided design. In high school, I took CAD for two years, but that was two years ago. I was a little rusty coming into the semester and had to learn a little about SolidWorks, having never used it, but I picked it up quickly knowing it would be a valuable tool in life based on the emphasis it was given during lectures by the number of times we had talked about drawings.

            As far as team work goes, I really think that our group worked well together and it was great to have that kind of cooperation. In the past, I’ve had teams where it is chaotic and no one really knows what is going on. I feel like something was different with our team. Everything seemed to click. If there was a misunderstanding, it was taken care of effectively so we were all on the same page. Yes sure there may have been disagreements (cough*paint color*cough), but if that was the worst that could have been disagreed on, then I have nothing to complain about with my team.

            I think that the course could be improved by possibly changing around the schedule/layout of the course. Some of the lectures could have been condensed down so that instead of covering two days, it was just one. This would leave fewer lectures overall and more time for the manufacturing aspect of the class. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the last 2-3 weeks of the class were completely hectic trying to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. It’s not like this is our only class so balancing this project on top of other exams and personal things was a little stressful at times. So I think it would give a little more breathing room if there was a little more time at the end to build than what we were given.

            Overall, I think I performed well in the class, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do any better. I think that I could have paid attention more during lectures and taken better notes. There were too many times that I looked down at the end of the lecture and then realized I hadn’t written a thing. While I didn’t do poorly on the midterm, taking better notes could have helped me retain things better than just cramming everything in the day before the exam.

            In the end, I almost still can’t believe how fast the semester has gone. There was so much to do which caused things to just fly by. I am proud of everything that I have done and I am glad to have these experiences. 

Individual Reflection: Hayley Hunter

Hayley Hunter

Final Reflection

     While during the class I found ME 250 to be very stressful, now that it’s over I found it to be a very interesting class. I liked how we, as a team, developed a strategy, came up with design concepts, then a final design, and then we got to see it all come together as our finished product. I felt like this class was really useful because I can see how everything we learned can be applicable to us in real life as mechanical engineers.

     Our team functioned pretty well together.  We all had different strengths that allowed each of us to excel in certain areas where others weren’t as familiar. I think our main problem was not checking each other’s work. After a long day of working in the machine shop, it was not a good idea to continue working on our project and try to figure out more measurements and calculations, which is what was often the case. This led to our main problem: hole placement for our brackets were off. Usually, the hole was only slightly off so we solved this issue by drilling the hole a little larger knowing the bolt head would hide the slightly larger hole. We had to do this a number of times though and it got to be frustrating but we fixed our mistakes and our robot turned out just fine.

     The biggest challenge I had with this class was the lack of experience and prior knowledge. While I have always been a real hands-on type person, I had never worked with any of these machines so being asked to use them was a bit of a challenge at first. Once we had training and I got used to the machines, I felt more confident and was able to use the machines. I felt like our team was at a disadvantage because of this though. None of us had had any prior experience on these machines so we had a bit of a slower start whereas many other teams had prior experience that gave them a good start to machining. Even though I didn’t have a lot of experience at first, Bob and Mark were really helpful and helped our team out a lot along the way, including doing all the welding on our robot for us.

     One critique I have for this class was the lectures. I didn’t really see how they tied into our projects because a lot of the material seemed to be more complex than was necessary for this class. It would have been more useful to have more lecture slides that were directly related to how our robot would work and how it would be put together, in particular the gear boxes and motors and how to attach them to our robot. Since our group didn’t have much expertise in the assembly of our drive train, we looked at the lectures slides to figure out how we should assemble our double gear box to drive our robot. The lecture slides suggested we use a flexible tubing to attach two axles so that is what we did. We ended up having issues when the time came to test our robot; the tubing was getting in the way and our gears wouldn’t turn so our robot couldn’t move. We noticed a lot of teams didn’t use the flexible tubing and just had one long axle which didn’t seem to give them any problems. Had we known that just making one long axle would be a good option, we would have done it but instead we followed the lecture slides which ended up giving us issues.

     Overall, this class was stressful and a lot of work but it was really rewarding to see our finished product racing around on the table. This has been my favorite class so far because it allowed us to take something from the design stage to the completed final product, which will be very useful in future classes and in the real world. 

Individual Reflection: Kim Angelakis

Kim Angelakis

Final Reflection
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ME250 has been a very rewarding class.  I feel as though my knowledge of the material for the class increased exponentially when we began to manufacture our robot.  It was an extremely long process but each step was crucial to the success of our final product.  I felt as though this class is the first class that has been one hundred percent applicable to our future in mechanical engineering. 

            The biggest difficulty I had with this class was my lack of prior knowledge of the material.  Many people coming into 250 have worked in the Wilson Center, on a design or formula team, had an internship that requires machining knowledge, and other backgrounds in this area.  Having no experience in this field made it very difficult to keep up with the lectures.  It also made it hard when we had to begin machining our robots.  Bob and Mark in the machine shop were extremely helpful.  We would not have been able to complete our robot without them.  They helped to show us how to use the machines, explain what order to manufacture and assemble things in, welded pieces of our project, and helped us with many other aspects of our project.  It was unfortunate that I could not learn as much from the lectures because I was missing the basic knowledge needed to follow them from the beginning.

            I think it was essential for our team to follow the design process.  I learned how important each step was including the earlier design steps.  These steps allow you to find the best possible design and strategy as well as to catch possible problems before they arise.  I did not realize when I was doing the first steps how much they would actually play into our final design.

            I would have had an even better experience in this class if I had gone in the beginning to either my GSI or one of the professors to get a general explanation of the topics.  This way I would have been able to understand more and learn more from each of the lectures.  I also could have spent more time on the first steps of the design process to possibly come up with even better ideas. 

            I also think that it would have helped to go over the different functions of the motors in context with our robots.  We also could have used more advice on our coupling system before creating it.  This was our biggest problem.  We eventually got it to work, but the plastic coupling was definitely not ideal for our robot. It would have helped us immensely to research this more before choosing the plastic coupling that was suggested in the supplemental assembly lecture. 

            It was good that there was an emphasis placed on working with teams and how useful this skill would be in the future.  This is not only a skill for mechanical engineering but a life skill no matter what you end up doing.  I think that uncovering our own learning style as well as other people’s learning styles was very important for the function of our team.  It was also interesting to discover our personality types in conjunction with how our team worked together.

            This class was a lot of work but extremely rewarding when we finally finished.  This has been the longest project I have worked on academically and to see it finally complete was gratifying.  I know that all of the skills I learned, from the team dynamic to how to use the machines, I will use in the future.  

Individual Reflection: Emily Kupa

Emily Kupa

Final Reflection

            This semester I have found ME 250 to be quite a challenge in many ways, but it has also brought me a lot of pride and confidence in my abilities. I can honestly say that ME 250 has been one of the most rewarding classes I have taken thus far in engineering at U of M, and has reinforced my decision to major in engineering in college.  Although this class was a joy to take and I definitely learned a lot, it did have challenges for me. 

            What I discovered the most from this class was learning all about the different machines, materials, and fasteners. Before taking this class, I barely knew the difference between a flat head and Phillips head screwdriver. Now, I can honestly say that I know the difference between several different fasteners and tools and when it is appropriate to use each one.  Something else I learned in this class, which I did not expect to, was discovering what kind of learning style I liked best and also the learning style associated with each member of my team. I thought this was one of the most beneficial tasks we did in lecture, because it enable me to understood my teammates more and why they acted the way they did. I believe if we did not have this understanding before going into the project, my teammates and I would have gotten on each other’s nerves a lot more and would not have worked as well together, as a team.    

            Some critiques I have for this class are that it needs to devote more time in teaching hands on training and to not assume we have previous knowledge about machine tools before going into this class. It is already very frustrating to be a women engineering student, but then to go into this class and be expected to have previous knowledge of materials and machine tools is at first intimidating. I had no prior knowledge about machine tools before going into this class and it seemed like other design teams (made up of mainly boys) had a leg up on my team (which had three women).  Also on the final, I believe there was material we were expected to know which we had never learned previously, like for instance, a bore cutter. Another suggestion I have is for isometric drawings to be covered in class in more detail, because it was a major portion of our exam and we didn’t have much practice with them. Finally, a lecture I didn’t really like was when a guest speaker came and gave us flashcards and told us to create new innovations. I did not find this lecture very beneficial and it did not seem like other students I talked with gained much from it either.

            One problem I did not really have in this class was time management. Our team finished our project very early and we really used our time well. We even had enough time to paint our robot, which was a nice end to the project. One thing I believe I could have improved on in this class was preparing and studying for the exam.  I always went to lecture, but when I went to lecture I later found I did not take notes that were detailed enough.  Therefore, when it came time to study for the exam, I found it to be a very big challenge to review the material and the lecture slides barely touch on each topic.

            All in all, this class has been my favorite engineering class thus far and I am really glad I took the class. ME 250 has steered me in the direction of engineering design for my career path and I am looking forward to taking ME 350 next term. I really think ME 250 allows you to see how our engineering classes are utilized in the work force and we were able to apply everything we had learned thus far in developing a “real” product.

            

Final Bill of Materials:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdF9kNmNodzNjLXd0ZmpTUVM0VUdpMWc#gid=0

Final Reflection:

Our team was really quite happy with the final outcome of our robot. Everything we planned on doing for we ended up getting accomplished. It was a great satisfaction seeing our robot come together and we were very proud of our end results.

Throughout the process we faced many challenges vary from the design process to manufacturing and assembly. The skills we learned in this class are applicable to real world situations and can be used in the work force. In a working environment you are going to have to work in teams and unfortunately you won't get to pick your teams like we did for this class. Even though we had the benefit of picking our own teams it is always challenging to work cohesively with many differently personalities.  It was beneficial to go through this process in order to learn the best ways to overcome these challenges and take advantage of people's strengths.

Our final robot had only a few variations on our original design.  We we're not sure at first if we wanted to use a hinge system or a spring loaded arm.  We chose the spring loaded arm because we felt it was more creative and more reliable once we could successfully manufacture it.  Once we had completely the majority of manufacturing and assembly we were able to test our robot on the competition table.  We found that although we had a lip on the bed of our robot to prevent the balls from rolling out, it did not prevent them from bouncing out when the were knocked off the tower.  After doing many trials we found the balls bounced out of both the back and the far side from the arm.  To counteract this problem we added a side barrier.  We used the extra aluminum sheet we had and bent it so we only had to make one barrier rather than two.  We used our existing fastener holes on our robot to attach the barrier so that we didn't have to drill new holes on the side of our robot.

Spring Loaded Arm

We also added aesthetic components to our robot to make it stand out from the rest.  We cut out our team name and logo on the side of our robot using the water jet.  Although we thought this was defining, we decided to also paint our robot.  We chose very vibrant and unique colors to make it stand out even more. Our additional focus on the decorative aspect of our robot paid off when we won most fabulous look!

This class allowed us to use what we learned in other classes and apply it to a real world situation.  Being such a long and time consuming project, it was extremely satisfying to finally complete our robot.  Although we had minor difficulties with our robot during competition we were happy with the end result.  After going through the entire design process we can see how important even the smallest steps are in the beginning.  We are proud to say we successfully completed this project earning the title of most fabulous.

             



                   
                                   BEFORE                                                                     AFTER

Team Barracuda Intro Video

Week 5: Paint and Practice

We finally completed assembling and trouble shooting our robot. This weekend we painted our robot using black and florescent pink rust-olium.  To do this we disassembled most of our robot except for the bottom with the driving unit.  We did not want to paint the axles and gear boxes because this would prevent the wheels from spinning.  We also avoided painting inside our arm to avoid sticking when releasing the are.
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Monday and Tuesday were spent re-soldering a few loose wires and practicing our driving.  Each team member got to practice driving to see who would be the best driver for MS10 and our competition. We also spent time collecting pictures and clips for our video which has been uploaded for the competition.

First Movement!

Week 4: Finishing Assembly and Movement

The end of this week was filled with ups and downs.  We thought that we would completely finish assembly and be able to start moving on Thursday morning.  What we didn't expect was the inability for our gearbox to drive the weight of our robot, and the axles slipping within the coupling.  We spent the rest of Thursday trying to problem solve the issues we were having.  We tried everything from sanding down the plastic tubing to putting a pin through the tubing and axle.  Eventually the combination of all these adjustments were finish.  We tried hooking it up to the control box to test driving it again.  Unfortunately it seemed as though all our hard work had not paid off; the gears would spin until we put it down on the table.
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Friday morning we decided to change the gear ratio of our gearbox to the second highest gear ratio giving us much higher torque and less speed. This would give us more force to drive our robot.  Eventually we got the gearbox back together and went to test it.  To our delight it worked! Our robot was finally moving.  As we tested it around the table we found that when we tried to knock the balls off the tower they would bounce either out the back or the far side of our robot.  We next set out to fix this unforeseen problem.  We easily fixed it by bending a piece of aluminum and attaching it to the side of our robot.  As you can see in the video above, it now works.  The last thing we did for the day was attach sand paper to our driving wheels using the Epoxy.  We did this in order to increase the friction between the wheels and the competition table.

Tomorrow we will set out to Home Depot to paint our robot.

Week 4: Assembly and Testing

This week we have the daunting task of completing our assembly and making our robot function. This is our assignment for MS9. So far two very long days have been spent in the machine shop working on assembly of our machine. Our robot is nearly completely assembled except for a few finishing touches. Our team was very surprised at how long everything took to do. At the start of this week we thought we were ahead. We didn't judge very well how long each task would take or calculate additional time needed for the unexpected problems which evidently are part of every step of the process for us. We thought the most time consuming task was already complete (machining all the parts of our robot). However, to our surprise, the assembly time has exceeded expectations and may take even longer than machining the parts did. Finishing touches of assembly and testing are next. We are looking forward to seeing our robot move!

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Yesterday and today we mainly focused on assembly, but we did have to machine the last few pieces of our robot. What was left to machine was drilling a few holes in the sheet metal and also reaming the holes in the axel brackets and press fitting the bushing into the bracket. We faced some struggles with the axel brackets like the axels not fitting through the bushing once the bushings had  been press fitted. To solve this problem we had to ream the bushings so the axels could fit through the holes. We also had to use a special press fit when fitting the ball bearings for the back wheels.
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Besides from machining, our main task for this week was assembly. During the assembly you realize several different problems you weren't expecting to encounter and it really forces you to use your problem solving skills just to find a solution. When we started assembling it seemed like a third of the holes didn't line up with the brackets. Instead of unassembling everything we decided to use a power drill to just make the holes a little bigger allowing the fastener to fit through the holes.  We also ran into the problem that some of the brackets would run into each other, so the solution we came up with was using the grinder to file down the edges that were hitting one another. The only other main problem we had to face was hooking up the axels to the double gearbox and making sure our machine could move.

Final Manufacturing Plan:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdDdCa0dLRmFPN3A3X1d6VkhmNFdXLXc#gid=0

Final Bill of Materials:

https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnCFn9ok6MqWdF9kNmNodzNjLXd0ZmpTUVM0VUdpMWc#gid=0

Meet the Team:

TEAM BARRACUDA!!!

Week 3: Finishing Parts & Assembly

This week we have been very busy trying to get everything ready for MS9. We spent everyday in the machine shop trying to finish up all our parts and start assembling. Earlier in the week we used the water jet to finish making the side pieces of our robot and worked hard to finish the arm of our robot. Later in the week we focused on our driving unit and started to make sure everything was able to be assembled. Our goals for the upcoming week is to have our machine fully assembled by the due date for MS9 and hopefully have everything fully functioning so we can start practicing. We hope to assemble fast, because we know there will always be an unforeseen obstacles and we want to leave room for that.
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This week was our first time using the lathe and we had several tasks we needed to complete on it. We had to use the lathe for cutting our axels for our rear wheel drive, cut the pin that for our spring loaded arm, bore holes in some of the axels and pin, and also face off all the axels. Using the lathe was new to us, but we didn't have any major challenges while doing it. We were able to get everything done we needed to except drilling the hole in the pin, because we need to ask Bob or Mark for advice how to approach doing that, because it seems pretty tricky especially with the pin being so small.
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Besides for using the lathe, we also used the mill, drill press, sheet cutter, press fitter, and sheet bender. We were focusing on getting the final parts machined, so we could assemble our robot. What we still had left to make were the brackets for the axels, extra brackets to hold sides together, drilling holes in some of our side pieces, and press fitting our bearings into the wheels and axels. We got everything done except for 2 brackets, needed for the axels, and drilling the holes in 6 of the brackets. We should easily be able to drill the holes in the brackets because we have already made a lot and are well experienced with the machine the only problem we may run into is that we have to ream the holes for the axel brackets and we haven't used the reamer yet, however we are confident we can figure it out.  Some challenges we faced this week occurred during  assembly. We found out a lot of our brackets didn't line up with holes, so we had to cut the holes in our sheet metal larger to account for the misalignment of holes. Once we corrected some of these minor mishaps we were able to get our robot 50% assembled. All in all, we had a good week and are hoping to finish our robot by next wednesday except for some minor details.

Week 3: Water Jet and Machine Shop

Today our team split up into two groups to make sure we completed as many tasks as possible in two hours since our deadline is getting closer. Our goals for today were to water jet our robots body, mill our remaining pieces, and drill press clearance holes in the sheet metal. Thursday we hope to start assembling our robot and figure out the placement of the axles and double gearbox. We hope to finish assembling by the end of the week.

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In the machine shop, we had several tasks we needed to get done today. Our main focus though was our MCM. What we had left to complete for our MCM was milling the L-brackets that will hit the balls off the perches, milling the ramp to guide the balls down to the bed of our robot, and band saw the pin for the spring loaded arm. After we finished our MCM parts we focused on getting the rest of the manufacturing complete, so we could start assembling Thursday. The manufacturing left was drill pressing clearance holes in the sheet metal pieces, finish milling and drilling holes in the brackets, and cutting the axles with the band saw. We did a good job today in the machine shop, because we finished the tasks needed in order to start assembling.

We also traded in the spring we had for a spring attached to a guiding pin.  This spring is ideal for us because it can compress more than a regular spring and meets our spring constant needs as well as the extension length we need. We also got the bushings we needed to press fit our axles into our wheels.  The next time we are in the machine shop we will be able to start assembling our driving unit.
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In the Michigan Solar Car machine shop we used the water jet cutter to finish cutting some tricky pieces needed for our body. Before going to the shop today we had to convert our Solidworks files to dxf files. Then when we arrived in the shop we had to upload our files and create a traversing path for the cutter to follow. We ran into some difficulties with the traversing path however. Our main problem was with our right side piece, because our design was curved and some shapes were to skinny. Since the design was curved we had to reconnect all the broken lines so that it would recognized we wanted to cut material out. We then had to make our shapes fatter so the tool size was able

to cut, because our shapes were skinnier then the tool size, the tool couldn't fit in the small shapes and cut the piece accurately. We solved this problem by editing our Solidworks files and making the shapes thicker. By doing this, we fixed our traversing problem and our piece was then able to be cut. Once we got our files all ready for the water jet we were able to cut all our pieces. The benefits of using the water jet were being able to cut out all our pieces with the holes already placed. This saved us a lot of time, since we could use one machine instead of three (band saw, mill, and drill press).

Week 2: Continuing Machining

This week we started to machine the rest of our body and most critical module.  We spent a cumulative amount of approximately 10 hours in the ME machine shop this week.  We mostly worked on cutting the sheet metal for our body as well as cutting, milling, and drilling our brackets in order to assemble our robot.  The parts we accomplished were all the cutting and milling for our most critical module, cutting all the pieces for the body that were to be cut in the ME shop, and starting to work on the brackets for assembly.

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Bracket: machined with band saw,
mill, drill press, and tap.


                  Bottom Bar: machined with
                  band saw, mill, and welded.

                  Used slot cutter on mill in

                  order to get slot on both sides

              of bar.                             _________________________________________________________________________________

Our goals for next week are to finish all the pieces for the body.  This will include going to use the water jet on Tuesday from 8:30 to 10:30am. The pieces we will cut include the sides of our body, the base, and one of the upper bed pieces.  The reason we chose to do these on the water jet was because the base and upper bed piece have cut outs in the center of the pieces that will come out more accurately and easily on the water jet. We are also cutting the side pieces on the water jet because of the hard angles and hole placements that we have for these parts.
Our other main goal for next week is to completely finish our most critical module by wednesday for MS8 and finish drilling and milling all of our brackets.  We would like to start assembling our robot on Friday.

We have made a lot of progress this week and hope to keep up this pace for the rest of the semester.  Our ideal schedule would be to finish everything in the machine shop this week and use the following two weeks to work on assembling our body, most critical module, and attachment of the gear boxes and wheels. We would also like to finish early enough to practice on the table and work out any unforeseen issues we may have.

Week 1: Starting to Machine

     Today we worked in the ME 250 classroom and also in the ME 250 machine shop. Our goals for the day was to build our double gearbox, check all our measurements, and start machining our most critical module (MCM), which is the arm of our robot. We decided to work on the double gearbox and measurements in the ME 250 classroom right after Lecture and other tasks needed to be completed. From 4:00- 6:00 p.m. we are planning on going to the machine shop and work on the mill, drill press, and band saw. We hope to finish our most critical module by the end of the day next Thursday (3/22). Besides from these tasks we also traded some of our materials in, because we needed more sheets of aluminum for our robot. We now have all the materials we need besides a part we have to order. We traded in our Acrylic plate and Delrin plate in order to get 2 more Aluminum plates, 1/16'' thick. We also were able to get a L shaped corner piece, which we will attach to our arm to knock balls off the perches of the tower.

Acrylic and Delrin Plates

Aluminum plates and L shaped
aluminum corner piece

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In the ME 250 classroom we built our double gearbox and also
checked the ball tower measurements. Some of the struggles
we faced when building the double gearbox was that it seemed
one of the holes was stripped of its threads so we were unable
to get the screw to fasten into the hole. Therefore, we had to get
a replacement part from another double gearbox kit, so we could assemble all the pieces and make sure they were tightly fixed together. We also checked our measurements to make sure our MCM was the right dimensions, because we wanted to start machining later today and we didn't want to make any mistakes especially when we are just starting the project.

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      In the machine shop we plan to work on our most critical module (MCM) of our robot. Our MCM for our robot is the arm, which will be used to knock balls off the perches of the tower. How the arm will work is that we will use the L shaped brackets to knock balls off the perches which will then roll down the ramp and land in the bed of the robot. We also have ramps on the base of our robot to ensure the balls make it to the bed of the robot. We have changed our MCM concept from before by making it spring loaded with a pin. How this concept will work is that we want to have the upper bar slide into the lower bar and will be compressing a spring. There will then be a pin placed through the lower and upper bar holding the upper arm down keeping the spring compressed. Our planetary gearbox motor will pull out the pin, which will release the spring and raise the upper arm. When the arm has been raised to the proper place a second pin will stop the arm and lock the arm into place.
    What parts we decided to machine today were the lower and upper bars of the arm and the L shaped brackets. The machines we have to use to manufacture these parts are the mill, band saw, and drill press. Some special features we have to make on these parts are a slot for the pin to slide into and a second hole for the second pin to stop the upper arm from moving. We will also have to ream the hole for the pin to go into in order to make it more accurate and a nice finish. This will be our first time working in the machine shop on our project, so we are expecting to be having some difficulties, but we hope to learn from our mistakes so we can become more efficient.

Calendar:

https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=barracudateam35%40gmail.com&ctz=America/New_York

Strategy & Concept:

Our chosen strategy was to knock the balls off the tower ledges and if time permits collect balls the bottom of the tower. We can accomplish this task by using the F-shaped rod on the robot. This pole allows for the balls to be knocked off of the perches of the tower.  The two parts perpendicular to the main pole will be at the same heights as the balls on the perches, so that when the robot drives by the balls will be knocked off of the tower into a hole in the robot. The robot has a hole in the middle near the front of the tower so that when the ball drops it can fall into this hole and no opponent can steal it. Also, there are barriers and ramps on the robot so if the ball doesn’t drop straight
into the hole, which is unlikely, it can slide down the ramp to the hole. Lastly, our robot design consists of a barrier that holds in the balls that we collect from the ground. The barrier lies in the front of the robot and is used to collect balls on the table by driving up to the balls and having the ball go through the gap. Then once the ball is in the barrier is will be guided by the robot to the goal. When the robot drives to the goal it can either release the balls from the barrier or the balls that lie in the circular hole (used to catch balls on ledges) simply by driving over the goal.

Our solid model for our robot