Update #2

This week we finalized our drawings for the most critical module, the arm, and started to begin machining the parts for it. Due to conflicting schedules, we decided to split up the parts among the members of the team.

Jeff’s Part: My part was to make two arm side plates. These side plates will be bolted to the inside of the square tube arm and contain the conveyor belt. The derlin slider plates will also be attached to the bottom of the arm to reduce friction as it slides on the bottom of the arena.

I manufactured this part out of 1/16th inch aluminum plate. I first had the outline cut out with the water jet, from there I used the mill to drill the holes. This was a long process because I first had to use the edge finder to zero the x-y axes. Next I had to drill center holes using a center drill and then either drill holes with the proper sized drill bit on the mill or or use a step drill and reamer combination to get the proper tolerance to create a tight fit for the bushings that will be pressed into some of the holes.

Here is the drawing used for the arm side plate, pictures of the machined part will be posted next week:



Nate, Dave, and Michael worked together on the laser cutter, band saw, and drill press. We cut the aluminum tube stock to our desired length using the band saw then drilled the holes to mount the side panels on using the drill press. These steps were rather simple and followed our manufacturing schedule; however, due to a lack of machine availability, we decided to deviate from our schedule and work on the delrin sliders (see drawing below). We used the laser cutter too manufacture these. With a little help from Marv, we uploaded our drawings and ensured the correct cutting order. These parts came out very well, but after matching them to the side panels we realized the delrin should have extended further beyond the bottom of the panels. Thus we filed down the bottom edge of the side panels so that only the delrin sliders would contact the bottom of the arena.



Altogether, our first week in the shop went extremely well. We somewhat stood out as the newcomers in the shop, but with a few hours of hard work we got a surprisingly large amount of work done. Most of our team members are extremely busy this week, so we are very lucky that we are almost complete with MS7