.:. Team Estrogen .:.

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Project Timeline
Fabrication Timeline

Project Timeline

Week of 30 September [3 class periods]:

  • At the end of each class period (save 15 - 20 mins or so), take a look at our proposal and make any necessary revisions. Doing this bit by bit will save us some time the night right before the exhibition.
  • Be pretty darn sure of our dimensions by the end of Monday and start into the math. We really need to talk to Dave about this stuff to figure out if our new dimensions will actually work (which was our problem last time).
  • Learn Working Model on Wednesday. The program, hopefully, along with MATLAB, will save us some manual trial-and-error calculations by running them all for us.
  • Once we're able to run some simulations with Working Model, we need to start discussing how we're going to do our practice run (with all wood, presumably). This will involve deciding which parts we'll need and how we're going to order them. Be 99% sure, at this point, that our budget accounts for this...

Week of 7 October [3 class periods]:

  • Working Model simulations.
  • Solidworks, Solidworks, Solidworks. Let's have the majority (everything but assembly?) done for sure by the end of Wednesday.
  • Finalized budget for submission -- including all the little pieces (fasteners, etc) that we'll need. This can be done Friday, once our simulations and CAD give us a better idea of what will be necessary.

Week of 11 October [no class periods, exhibition on Friday]:

  • Final drafts of everything (into pdf files, on the Internet)
  • Create presentation
  • Do anything we forgot to do

Week of 21 October [1 - 1.5 class periods]:

  • Once budget is approved, begin ordering real parts
  • Start physical modelling once mock-up parts come in
  • Keep doing math...

Week of 28 October [3 class periods]

  • Keep working on the prototype. Make appropriate changes to documents as problems with the prototype appear. Try to finish prototype this week and as much for the exhibition as possible.

Week of 4 November [2 class periods]

  • Last-minute preparation for the exhibition.
  • Assuming our prototype is successful, and assuming our real parts have come in, start fabricating final sculpture.

11.22.02 ... Ideal (massless, frictionless) situation: have sculpture completely finished and ready for debugging.

[Update as of 11.22.02: we've met our ultimate goal, although along the way we haven't exactly followed our schedule precisely. Our prototype was not finished until the week of 11.11.02...]

Fabrication

Mounting Board

  • Will be constructed from a plywood/aluminum backing (epoxied together) and a steel front, cut to dimensions using a bandsaw. The back and middle boards are mounted to opposite sides of a large ball bearing. Joles plans to weld the three components together.

Drive Mechanism

  • The reservoir will be constructed from welded steel with a Plexiglass front. We are considering acrylic bonding for this, but realize that such methods require permits we are unlikely to get. Water-tight epoxy is also a possibility here.
  • The Delrin gears will be ordered from Small Parts and mounted onto axles (likely with cotter pins through drilled holes) purchased from a home improvement store. These in turn will be mounted (again, probably with cotter pins) to holes drilled in the acrylic on the reservoir.
  • Bearing balls will simply be poured into the reservoir and sealed in.
  • The turnstile will be constructed from parts we find from junkyards, etc, in a very informal way.

Aesthetics

  • Pieces of cork will be epoxied to the fronts of the gears.
  • The pointed ends (duh) of cocktail umbrellas will then be put into the cork, successfully mounting our aesthetic components to the drive train.