A recap of the past three days is in order.
Thursday: We had our first design class, got smacked with the knowledge of the mini project coming up. Team assigned. Six. Okay, five members.
And thus we were the Abandoned.
This would be the proverbial back of the napkin sketch in 20 minutes of design. Of course, no napkins. Only bright yellow paper. Rudimentary shapes, general ideas and direction. We are true artists.
We scurried off to do things, but resolved to get on top of this project thing.
Friday: Group had a quick meet-up to discuss and design. Stuff got done.
Stretching some rubber bands, just trying out to see and feel the difference in tension.
We talked, we discussed, and we drew. We refined some concepts we were playing around with in our last brainstorm session.
The trigger, being the most difficult part, got talked about. We thought about a lever mechanism and a series of dominoes.
We started sketching out some of the framework.
A more detailed view and refinement of the initial sketch. Added a bottom bar for support and discussed its role in changing the angle of the launch.
As a group, we set up the meet-time for a small build session the next day.
Saturday: Operation: #theTriggering commences.
Priority: get something done for the trigger. We’ll need the most time to work on that, so we needed to get started on it.
To test the domino theory, we had to create the dominoes.
Incorporating 3D printed dominoes as part of our design seemed more efficient than just making pieces out of our limited amount of plywood. If nothing else, they’re good test pieces.
And, of course, we also tested making dominoes out of cardboard and washers. Nice to have on hand, and we could try out using a mixture of these and 3D printed pieces in the trigger mechanism.
Flaw in cardboard: it doesn’t tend to stand up by itself. Too flimsy. This was rectified by some hot glue.
Lined up in a row: several dominoes. We worked some scaling.
Awkward and wobbly cardboard. We needed a way to set up this faster, so flat faces for the bottom plane of the cardboard dominoes–if we choose to pursue that route–was a must. Dominoes stood a little wobbly, but it’s nothing a little sanding didn’t fix.
And, they all fall down. They toppled over with little force. Needs further testing about what angle the pingpong ball will approach the row, but so far, so good.
Quick test with a ruler as a makeshift lever, and some washers as a counterbalance. Used one of the printed dominoes to test the concept, will need more refinement.
First Year Design: Mini Project 