Category: Aiden’s Status Reports

What did I accomplish?

I built another linear axis for the pitch gantry and achieved simultaneous 2-axis movement, and hypothesized different solutions to frame it. I decided that, given the spatial constraints and minimal time left, the XY gantry was unfeasible. I instead developed and sourced components for another gantry enhancement — the retractable Z magnet. I also iterated on the gantry control with Bing to enable variable pitch speed and a button interface.

 

Am I on schedule or behind?

I’m behind schedule. I hoped we would have had more time fully integrated and testing at this point.

 

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

Everything. I hope to produce a system that is robust, skill-based, engaging, aesthetically pleasing, and, most importantly, fun.

What did I accomplish?

I framed the gantry into our wooden game board, I mounted a magnet to it, I designed and cut the housing for our scoreboard, and I iterated previous pocket designs and printed them all.

 

Am I on schedule or behind?

I feel a bit behind schedule, as we haven’t gotten around to testing as much as I would’ve liked, and tomorrow is our last push for complete integration.

 

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I hope to finish the full integration, clean up any hacked-together solutions, and improve the robustness of fabrication. After that, I will begin working on two-axis gantry movement, as it’s currently confined to 1 axis.

What did I accomplish?

I assembled a linear actuator (1 axis of the gantry) and designed and CAD modelled pockets which have a slot to embed our breakbeams in them. 

 

Am I on schedule or behind?

I feel on schedule with our latest Gantt chart. While I didn’t get to programming the linear actuator (gantry), I was pleased with the progress we made on the under-table routing and pocket design.

 

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I hope to program the gantry to move in a straight line and mount a magnet to it. I also hope to print and test the pockets and finalize the design.

On the verification of my systems
I have contributed to a lot of the subsystems, and the one that I am owning, the pitch, is still awaiting its core component — the gantry. I just finished assembling the gantry and have yet to verify it.

Another core component of the pitch is the “coupling mechanism”, which includes everything in the scope of the ball and getting it to move with the gantry under the table. At first, our design included a magnet that we would linearly retract. Our first ball design was a steel puck with a plastic cover on it, as we feared the weight of a full ball would be too much for the flipper. Our main test was a drag test with the ball, where we had the ball above a piece of the surface material and dragged it with a magnet below. From our testing, we concluded that the puck experienced too much friction, and we changed to a ball once we realized that the flipper was strong enough to hit it effectively. We also tested a few different strengths of magnet and settled on one that held the ball strongly enough so that it stayed coupled while undergoing massive acceleration changes (by dragging the magnet in aggressive paths and speeds), yet not too strong so that it was difficult to decouple the ball with the flick of our fingers (replicating a flipper striking it). The balls rolled and thus didn’t suffer from friction like the pucks.

Much of my contributions have been physical thus far, namely the game board. This required little formal testing. We needed to ensure the game dimensions passed the eye test and that the board felt strong enough.

What did I accomplish?

I fabricated the game board out of plywood and laser-cut the surface out of hardboard. I CAD modelled and 3D printed a gate-like housing for the breakbeams and a return pocket for the ball to be picked up from. I tested the friction and magnetic strength of two models of game balls, and ordered a few other sizes of balls and a pack of stronger magnets according to the testing results. I spoke with several people from TechSpark to review my designs.

 

Am I on schedule or behind?

I am currently on schedule. So long as tomorrow goes to plan, the game board fabrication should be complete.

 

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I hope to build one axis of the gantry and program it to move in a straight path.

What did I accomplish?

I did a lot of stuff pertaining to the physical fabrication of our game board. I revised our CAD model for both the surface and the frame of our board. The surface design mimicked an old baseball-themed arcade game that we found, and the frame design was informed by a conversation I had with Justin Harvilla, who works at TechSpark’s woodshop. I also iterated on the flipper design and 3D-printed a few other small components to ensure a clean interaction between the flipper and the game ball.

I cut out both a small piece of hardboard and a full-sized surface replica out of cardboard. The hardboard cutout served to test how much friction the game ball experienced, and the full-size cutout served as a visual aid for pocket placement and board sizing.

Am I on schedule or behind?

I am currently on schedule with revisions to reflect the delayed arrival of the gantry, yet I am concerned with the amount of work I’ll have to do next week to hit a reasonable interim demo.

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I hope to:

1. Order and acquire my game board materials — hardboard, acrylic, and plywood.

If those come in by Wednesday:

2a. Test the flipper hitting reach with the hardboard. This will inform the final board size.

3a. Resize the surface and cut it. This may not be the final surface, but the length and width should be final so that I can:

4a. Make the frame.  This should be a one-and-done deal. No revisions.

If those don’t come in by Wednesday:

2b. Build the Gantry

3b. Program it to move in a straight path.

4b.  (Stretch) Mount the magnet to the gantry so it can automatically drag the puck in a straight line.

What did I accomplish?

I machined three prototypes for the game puck out of steel, and tried testing magnetism with small neodymium magnets I found, but they were far too weak, so I ordered some stronger magnets. I also drilled holes in the 3D printed flipper prototypes so they can be mounted on the servo horn, and planned revisions to the flipper.  I acquired and tested a small solenoid for linear actuation for the coupling mechanism, and the speed seemed fine. Thus, I have simplified the coupling mechanism design. For our board fabrication, I researched building materials and framing styles.

Am I on schedule or behind?

I’m on schedule, but I am getting concerned that the gantry still hasn’t come in yet. I will continue to make progress elsewhere until then.

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I plan to make a prototype game board with a cutout for the flipper servo and at least one for a scoring pocket. This can serve as a test bench for all of our subsystems except the pitch. It will be like a slice of the real deal, so it should be a good proof of concept. 

What did I accomplish?

Am I on schedule or behind?

I think after adapting my schedule to fit my delayed gantry arrival, I am on schedule. Over Spring break, I worked on the things I sought to beforhand.

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

If my steel rod comes in, I want to make a prototype of the game puck to enable Vivian to make forward progress with the flapper system. I want to pass off the coupling mechanism work to her as well so that I can focus on the gantry, as it should be arriving soon.

I want to meet with the team to finalize a game board surface design so that we can at least have a prototype to work with in the following week.

What did I accomplish?

Am I on schedule or behind?

I’m slightly behind schedule because my parts won’t arrive for another 2 weeks. Some of my parts weren’t approved when I put the order requests in, and some required much more research to understand their tradeoffs and compatibility.

What do I hope to complete in the next week?

I want to work on the coupling mechanism design, with a tentative parts list and at least 2 solutions to propose to my teammates.