This week our students moved forward with both creative design projects and hands-on fabrication work, demonstrating how engineering combines imagination, iteration, and precision.
In his post covering the week of October 14–17, Matt writes about advancing his mechanical subsystem for an autonomous cart. After prototyping the drive train and verifying wheel alignment, Matt turned his attention to the sensor mount. He explains how he initially fixed the mount to the frame with standard bolts but soon noticed excessive vibration when the cart moved. To address this, he redesigned the mount in CAD with ribbed reinforcement and moved the attachment points outward to reduce leverage. He then 3D-printed the revised mount and reported that the cart ran much smoother in subsequent tests. He still plans one more iteration to integrate a cable-management channel so the wires won’t get caught under the wheels.
Meanwhile, over the same timeframe, Asiya wrote about working on her Addam’s Family Hand project. Asiya is working with Fusion 360 and learning how to create joints between movable parts. The goal is to create a mechanical hand that can be controlled via custom circuitry. This is a perfect project during the month of October, as its a proper Halloween themed idea. We are looking forward to seeing this hand crawl itself around the Engineering shop!
The Sophomores, now finished with OSHA 10 worked on coding and circuitry all week with Mr. Christy. They will continue with their hand drafting unit next week.
MVTHS Engineering 
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