This week, we made significant strides in the physical fabrication and flipper-gameboard integration. Aiden revised the CAD models of the game board surface and frame, and consulted TechSpark’s woodshop lead for advice. Vivian tested the new servo and IR break beam sensors and successfully implemented a prototype game state machine with these two components. Bing continued development on the bat swing detection system.
We ran multiple hands-on tests this week that helped shape upcoming design decisions. We tested flipper-ball (hits), ball-magnet, and ball-surface (friction) interactions, and developed a full-scale surface prototype to evaluate the dimensioning of the board and pockets. We confirmed that the flipper was strong enough to hit the ball, but the ball doesn’t travel as far as we wish. We are going to try with a spherical game ball instead of the current design, which is a puck. We also concluded that the magnet was strong enough.
Looking ahead, we are focusing on pulling together a cohesive interim demo for next week, and we will likely focus on physical fabrication and integration of at least a prototype of all subsystems minus the pitch (gantry).