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Safiya’s Status Report for 10/18

  1. I finished the CAD for the carriage subsystem. I started fixing my 3D printer to get ready to print rack and pinions. I also put in purchase requests for all items so far to assemble LivePin. I had to also redo the CAD for the frame because we went from 32×24 in the CAD to 32×32 pin board.
  2. Behind. Purchasing might take a bit. To get ahead I will ensure all items are ordered that we need for a working demo, and get the CAD to a point where all pieces are accounted for.
  3. Fully Finished CAD, 3D printed rack and pinions, and finished purchasing.

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Safiya’s Status Report 10/4

This week I focused on our design presentation and hardware planning. I practiced the presentation several times, and moved the bill of materials forward by organizing parts by subsystem, choosing likely vendors, and building rough cost totals. I also updated CAD for the larger pin screen and produced visuals for the presentation.

I am a little behind on final pricing and carriage design. To catch up I will lock vendor choices, complete the latest bill of materials with totals and start the first round of orders so the build stays on track.

Next week I plan to finalize the bill of materials, finish the carriage design and  begin 3D printing the rack and pinions.

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Safiya’s Status Report 9/27

This week I spent a lot of time on Onshape CADing and redesigning. The original CAD that I started earlier in the week derailed a bit, as we got to discussing some design changes, specifically centered around increasing the resolution of the PinScreen. As it scaled up, the frame and gantry and carriage all had to scale up as well. We then decided on Monday to make a custom PinScreen instead of buying a COT one, and thus that led to needing to design and CAD the PinScreen. I am not totally done with a lot of the details (haven’t started the reset mechanism). But this is the progress so far on the cad :
  

Deliverables for next week would be a complete Bill of Materials, Purchasing done, and a more fleshed out CAD that is ready(ish) for assembly. This includes the design and CAD of the carriage 3D print, which is the most complicated, the motors and belts on the frame, and the pinScreen reset mechanism.

We are pretty good on schedule so far.

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Team Status Report 9/20

The most significant risks that could jeopardize the success of the project might be the complexity of the design. Mechanically and Electronically it’s a little complex and out of our comfort zone, the most difficult part that could risk the feasibility is most likely the integration and getting software + firmware + hardware all working cohesively. To manage these risks, we are doing our best to separate each category of the design into different areas of responsibility so that each person will be accountable and an “expert” at their tasks. This will help us when debugging when it comes to the integration stage. Our contingency plan would be scaling down, we are prepared for the firmware and software part to be complicated so we are prepared to drop the “updating” nature of LivePin, and start with pre fed images to replicate on the board, without the human aspect and the “live” feature.

Yes, through concept sketching we found that some sort of clamping mechanism was necessary for the pinboard to stay upright, and we also found the need of limit switches in our design to mitigate the risk of the gantry from damaging itself, and also for the carriage to be able to “home” itself. This change was very necessary, in order for us to have a way to initially find where the carriage is in terms of its cartesian coordinates. This incurs the cost of a couple limit switches which are relatively cheap (less than 15 bucks total).

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Safiya’s Status Report for 9/20

  1. This week I created concept sketches for the LivePin Prototype and did a lot of research on all the components that it would take to come up with a comprehensive design. I looked into some actuator options and think the place to start would be a 3d printed rack and pinion. I also started sketching out the carriage design and the gantry system, which brought up a lot of design questions, which is good so we can answer them before moving forward. I included that concept sketch doc here.
  2. My progress is on schedule, as we planned for me to do the concept sketch this week and then finish CAD by next week.
  3. I hope to complete the CAD of the prototype in time for the design presentation and complete the design presentation.This one is not the final, it won’t let me upload because its too big
    Note Sep 18, 2025