Weekly Update: Finalized Design

Throughout the past week our group has met several times to finish engineering out arm and shaft module (See Post 1). After completeing our finalized CAD design and analysis we ran into a couple problems. The first of these problems included how we mounted the motor to the top of the shaft. Figure 1 shows the Solidworks model of the shaft constraints. There are several of these plates that we will manufacture to support the motor inside. Theses will be made from delrin and will be able to slide up and down the shaft on the wall module (See post 1) easily. The second problem we ran into was the alignment problem with the bevel gears (Figure 2; located at the bottom of the shaft to articulate the scoop). We decided to make the bevel gears larger to confront this issue, and also added a cover to protect the bevel gears as well. The bevel gears will be ordered from either McMaster or SDP-SI.

Figure 1: Motor Constraints

From our analysis we found that the gearing specs from our kit would provide configurations offering far too much torque [that took too much time] or far too little torque. Our group decided on swapping some of the gears from another motor kit to achieve an ideal gear ratio. After addressing these problems our group came up with a bill of materials, detailed manufaturing plan, and drawings of all parts in our shaft module.

Figure 2: Bevel Gears Located at Bottom of Shaft

This coming week we will be completeing the motor lab assignment that will be due while using our time to begin manufacturing. We hope to have three manufactured parts completed by the end of this week. A significant amount of parts being manufactured from our shaft module can be made on the waterjet. By reserving the waterjet we should be able to start and finish manufacturing several parts in an efficient manner. We hope to be able to reserve the laser cutter as well to get a head start on our manufacturing. Our original meeting plan and schedule from post 2 should be a sufficient amount of time to complete all of the assignments. The goal of our team is to manufacture all of our parts efficiently and effectively so we can assemble and test our machine to fix any problems that may occur. Having a buffer period of time to improve upon the performance of our machine is important to us.

Figure 3: Finalized Shaft Module