I hope everybody enjoyed their 3 day weekend. There was a lot of work happening in the shop last week, so let’s get to it.
Senior Milo Austin was working on a few projects:
This week I can finally say I finished the fish feeder the right way. Last week I was worried that the fish feeder would run into a conflict when it needed to turn. However this is not the case. Once the auger was full of fish food it was not running into any stoppages. The fish feeder also had plenty of clearance between the bottom of the fish food and the auger. I’m pleased with how the re design turned out and now I feel confident that it will last.
After I finished the fish feeder I was finally able to get back to my chair project. I found that the break I took from the project helped me really have a fresh look at the design. I put in these new support pieces that will allow the chair to be stronger and for the skate decks to better fit into place. Obviously in the carboard model the wooden braces are not as thick as the plywood I am using which is why there is a separation between the tops of the boards and the top of the frame. Overall I am pleased with the new design and it will be much stronger.
See Milo’s website, linked here, to learn more.
Junior Lincoln Bell continues to work on a self balancing project:
This week I continued assembling the design I had made the week prior. The old motor pins I was using snapped off inside the gimbals, which meant I had to 3D print all the gimbal parts again. I had to redesign my motor pins anyways, as the previous ones had no way to connect to the servo motor. Speaking of the servo, I also finalized my design for the mount that attaches the servo motor to the body of the train. Originally, I was planning to go with a two-part 3D printed mount that the servo would slide into, but I eventually gave up on it, as I came up with a new design that uses a single laser-cut piece instead.
I also redesigned the pegs that secure the gyroscope gimbals to the chassis. The previous design was just for testing if the build would work. The new design has an added part that will attach to the servo motor and allow the motor to control the gimbals position
This is the fully assembled testing rig. Next week I will begin placing the electronics and getting the flywheels ready to go into the gimbal.
See Lincoln’s website, linked here, to learn more.
Sophomore Andrew Huang is designing a circuit board for the SumoBot competition:
slow week since my partner focused more on the rov than our sumobot, so i went back to working on my zeromouse project.
during our blog post presentations, my friend miles spotted an issue with my button wiring. turns out i was using a faulty button footprint with incorrect wiring. after switching to the right footprint and fixing the connections, the pcb shouldn’t have any shorts now.
jonas (my partner) also printed the pcb holder for our sumobot, so i’ll be milling the board soon.
in my previous blogpost on the zeromouse, there were a bunch of errors that i had to deal with this week
- the size is really short… like way shorter than i thought
- the standoffs for the pcb aren’t aligned properly (mainly because i suck at measuring)
- the holder for the sensor was a bit small, and there was only one layer of print for it
i started by resizing and cleaning up the frame design:
i also tried a new standoff design since i didn’t like the bulky filled lines from before, while hopefully fixing the alignment issues.
the sensor mount isn’t added yet, but i’m using a thicker shell to avoid the structural problems from last time.
hopefully next week i’ll have a test body and wheels for the sumobot, and i can test print this new mouse shell.
Check out Andrew’s website, linked here, to learn more.
Our Freshmen concentrated of a week on CAD. They are moving closer to learning some machine shop tools, and first up will be the WaterJet!
That’s all for now!
MVTHS Engineering 
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