It was another short week due to the weather and the large amount of snow dumped on New England. The students were only in shop for 3 days, but we were still able to get some work done.
Senior Bella was in between projects this week:
This week, I really didn’t get that much done. We had no school on Monday and Tuesday because of the snowstorm and I got sick over those two days, so I was absent on Wednesday. When I got back on Thursday, I started trying to design a different label for Northampton for the Eco League map, since I didn’t like the previous two I made. We didn’t have any markers today, so I waited until I got home to color it in. After that, I did a rough sketch of the nail supplies organizer I started researching online last Friday. I’m not sure what the actual measurements are for the drawer, but once I find those out, I’ll start designing it in CAD.
Junior Adam S was working on a few different projects this week:
It was another shortened week due to the massive amounts of snow we got causing school to close both Monday and Tuesday.
Since the part I needed to continue the PCBs and adjust the code for R2 has not come in yet I decided to take on a side project from Mr. L. One of the EL teachers needed some parts made for (I think) a musical instrument. These were to be milled out both Delrin and PEEK plastic. I started off by making a sort of prototype that wasn’t perfectly measured just to make sure it was what the teacher wanted it to look like and also to confirm some of the measurements with the teacher that might not have been possible on our mills. The teacher approved how it looked so I went on to start making the second one.
I decided I wanted to use the manual mill to make these because I wanted to get better at writing the different programs that can be used in our manual mill. The inside part, known as the pocket, involved setting the two corners of the pocket and then just telling the machine what diameter tool was being used and how fast you wanted the operation to be. The outside part was a bit more tricky because the dimensions the teacher gave me wouldn’t work on our machine and so I had to decide what exactly would work without being too far away from the teacher’s original intent. There wasn’t too much to be sacrificed and as I said the teacher was fine with the changes. The outside cut also involved setting the two corners of what the shape would be after it was cut and then giving the machine the tool diameter. So in the end this week turned out to be more of a side project then the work I had been doing.
Sophomore Adam Dangi was working on his LED Light Box electronics:
This was another shorter week because of the snowstorm on Monday and Tuesday
On Wednesday I ran into an issue with my stuff. The board was refusing to accept code. Yes I know this sounds similar to last week’s issues; however, this is different. I spent the majority of Wednesday checking if it was a software problem, resigning myself to checking the hardware side on Thursday. After a thorough check, I was able to conclude that it was indeed NOT the software, which helped narrow it down a lot. Below is the current code for the light sensor.
On Thursday after narrowing it down to a hardware problem, I set out to see what exactly in the hardware was the issue. I first checked the cable, by switching it out with someone elses, it wasn’t the cable. I then swapped out the Neopixel Light Stick, also not the Light Stick. I switched out the entire ATPmega328 with my buddy dom, still not the answer. Then, after a bit of a rage (don’t worry I didnt break anything) I came back to seeing that, it works. Kinda. It still wont take in code, but its doing what its meant to do. However WHY its doing it I don’t know.
Today is Friday, I’m going to find out why it’s “working”, and going to see if I can restore its original self.
Our new Freshmen have been working on learning CAD skills over the last two weeks. They will be learning about circuitry and electronics in the coming week!
MVTHS Engineering 
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