Parts! (And An Experimental Prototype)

The past two or so weeks of Design Nature have mostly involved SolidWorks, a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software. If you walked through the dorms or the studios at almost any hour, you'd find freshmen CAD-ing. First there was the motion analysis, where we CAD-ed a very simple version of our hopper and used the Solidworks motion simulation software to get a guess for how high our hopper would hop. Then there was the solid model, which involved CAD-ing and assembling all the parts of our hopper to get something that looked like our intended prototype.

My laser cut parts! There's another piece exactly like the little one, but it was already part of the in-progress hopper when I took this picture.

Finally, we had to CAD drawings for the plastic pieces of our model so that we could give these to the NINJAs, who laser cut our pieces for us! It was really exciting to get the pieces -- it's the first time since making sketch models that there's actually been something tangible coming out of all the work. Also, the filleted (rounded) edges are so smooth and pretty!

Today I assembled my hopper, though if I have time on Tuesday I might make some changes. It has some problems I expected (like balance and the suction cups not releasing simultaneously) and some I should have expected but didn't (such as the latex tubing pulling the two ramps to be at the same angle).

Unfortunately, it also doesn't really hop, though it does launch forward. My goal was for it to hop at an angle, but I didn't really intend for it to move only in the horizontal direction...

The next assignment is about reflection, and then after that is redesign for the demonstration prototype. Right now, I'm not entirely sure what direction to take with this, so I'm planning on experimenting some to see what could be fixable.

An assembled, though not particularly functional, experimental prototype.