Category: PowerTech 10

Power tech reflection: Passion Project

Ryan on

For this project, Martin and I started building a small boxcar but realized that we would need more time. Although we completed fixing errors in the engine, we still needed some parts as well as gas which was an investment we decided not to take. We then went our separate ways and I decided to try something new, which included manipulating the form of the wood to make the illusion that a ball was trapped inside.

 

Part A

Research:

  1. My research consisted of first finding a project I wanted to do. I found my project idea from a YouTuber called WoodLogger. He has created many things but I chose to do a simple project that was still interesting to do.
  2. I followed his measurements from the tutorial but ended up making a few adjustments. This resulted in a longer more flexible body so that the ball can pass through smoothly.
  3. My research was well organized and was clear to follow.

Design:

  1. My project wasn’t very flashy all though it does look kinda cool. This did not result in issues. It’s more for function and illusion than a trophy item.
  2. Originally I wanted a certain species of wood Basswood but ended up with pine. It smelt nice though so I made an exception. Pine is still a softwood as well so it worked just as well as I would’ve hoped.
  3. I designed it to be cut a certain way to have curved inside edges done with a drill and a Forstner bit. However, I found it to be a struggle to cut it using the bit as rather the drill wasn’t moving fast enough or the bit was dull and all it was doing was melting the wood from how hot it got. So I ended up drilling 2 holes and learning how to set up the scroll saw to cut all the way around.

Materials:

  1. Gathering materials was easy as I had goofballs at home and I knew there was wood in the shop. However, the wood in the shop did not meet my needs in thickness so I had to glue two pieces together.
  2. The glue turned out to be a problem as when I tried to soak the wood in boiling water the wood glue came loose and ruined the flush look of the two pieces of wood.
  3. I then asked to find wood in the woodshop which I had not thought of before and to my surprise, I found what I need. This means I did not need to use wood glue and the finished product would look better.

Construction:

  1. The construction of the original two-piece block made me impatient as I don’t like waiting for glue to dry as it ruins my work momentum. This resulted in a small waste of time but I managed to finish a bit of this reflection which wasn’t all that bad.
  2. The glue I used for the original block didn’t hold under the hot water. Although the wood expanded as hoped, and the ball slipped through without problems. The wood was hot enough to come loose.
  3. Trying to use the adjustable scroll saw was tricky as well as it took me a few tries to get the right cut line. I learned faster after watching Mr. Romani on the scroll saw after replacing the saw blade.

Construction Learning Tools

  1. I learned how to use the saw blade safely and properly. I needed this to cut a large-scaled piece of wood that I could not cut on any other table saw.
  2. Cutting the inner side of the block required a different tool as I couldn’t use the band saw and the spindle sander would take much too long. I learned how to properly set up the scroll saw as the result of this.
  3. To get the golf ball in the wood. I needed to soak the wood in near-boiling water in order for it to expand for me to slip the golf ball through the spaces. This took me 2 attempts as the first block had glue which I found out later was a problem. The second time worked fine. The wood expanded accordingly and both balls slide through fine.

Part B

Things learned

  1. How to properly set up and use the saw blade
  2. How to properly set up and use the scroll saw
  3. How to expand wood underwater
  4. That building a car required materials that were more expensive then we thought
  5. That judging how much time needed should not be taken lightly

Part C

Self Evaluation:

Grade: A-

Although Martin and I misjudged the time and money we needed on our ideal project, we still learned more in-depth about the engine. With our hands-on and observation skills, we were able to fix some problems that appeared as we stripped the engine slowly to look for parts that were damaged or missing. However, as we went our separate ways after a class or two I saw that everyone was doing something pretty similar incorporating the basic tools and materials in the shop to make their projects. I wanted to do something a little bit different, by manipulating the form of the wood to make it appear that a ball was trapped inside with no way for it to enter or escape. To heat the wood in the water I had to take my project home myself. Although the project was simple enough to complete fairly quickly I prepared for errors as I’ve never tried this before. An error the first time was that the wood glue didn’t last under the hot temperature but I was prepared that that would work instead I had a backup piece of wood to cut to scale without using glue. however, both pieces of wood worked exactly the way I wanted in terms of expanding. I feel like I was a lot more prepared for this project in terms of planning and preparation than any other project. An improvement I could work on is my cutting on the scroll saw as I’m still a little shakey and it’s a 50/50 that the cut goes smooth. Other than that I believe my work habits were consistent.

 

**image sent separately**

power tech reflection : hydraulic machine

Ryan on

In this project, Martin and I designed a hydraulic arm that picks up small objects. Small medical syringes attached to clear plastic tubing retaking and attracting acting as hydraulic moving various parts of the arm. In this project martin and I showed creative and critical thinking to create and manufacture the various parts of the arm, especially the claw.

 

Part A

 

Research:

1. Our research only consisted of the package of paper given to us as a reference for our project. This didn’t result in much difficulty or problems other than we had to do everything out of our own brainstorms and head.

2. We Planned out everything we needed to assemble in 4 main parts. Claw, Base, Body, Arm. We planned on the assembly of the arm which led to a much smoother assembly process

3. The main source of our ideas came from the package provided as well as the previous projects left behind everything else we came up with ourselves.

 

Design:

 

  1. Designing was quite simple as we have a general idea of what we wanted but the main issue with this was we did not take into consideration the weight that was being distributed throughout the arm.
  2. We wanted to do a scoop claw which didn’t work out the way we wanted so we stuck to a simpler-ish claw.
  3. A design issue we had was syringe placements but was quickly fixed by simply replacing them.

 

Materials:

 

  1. Gathering materials where easy as they were all provided in the shop. The only challenging thing to find was the larger syringes which were limited in supply.
  2.  One problem we had was that some of the materials were not strong enough ex. The hardboard was not firm enough for a claw so I switch the material to the hardboard.
  3. We needed to find the syringes but we easily got them by scamming people by lending a hand with a problem they had for a syringe.

Construction:

  1. Constructing the bass and the main body was hard as our hands were a little too big to fit in but we overcame this by placing the materials inside using needle-nose pliers.
  2. Some of the tubings didn’t fit over the tip of the syringe we Fixed this problem by heating the end with the glue gun and using the heat to stretch the plastic over the syringe.
  3. The last problem we really had was the claw we could not include the scroop as it was hard to make work, So I made a hardboard claw instead which worked a lot better but it was heavy so we added a counterweight in the base.

 

Construction #2

 

  1. We used the sanding skill to make cardboard circles used for pulleys to give our arm a 360-degree rotation.
  2. We found that the arm did not have the best vertical range so we incorporated a separate small hydraulic system to help push the block into space where our arm could pick it up.
  3. We did not have enough strength in the hydraulics to move everything so we switch some of the smaller ones with bigger ones to give the smaller ones extra force.

 

Part B

Things learned:

  1. How different things can compliment others. (syringes)
  2. How that the simpler claws are better than ones that might have benefits but harder to assemble.
  3. How a little weight distribution can conduct a smoother turning

 

Part C

Self-evaluation

Grade: A

 

Martin and I worked very efficiently to finish with a claw that worked smoothly. We had some issues but because of our efficient working, we had time to incorporate a side hydraulic to compliment the main arm. We had all our ideas laid out and followed the 80/20 rule quite well. An improvement we could have made is to not always complicate the situation with more but simplify it with less.

 

Video:

n/a file too large will send through email.

 

 

Power tech reflection

Ryan on

For this project, Martin and I worked efficiently together to finished our rube Goldberg project. The machine was designed to play a 2000 throwback song: replay by Iyaz, as a result of a mini stylus hitting the play button of an iPhone 8.  In this project Martin and I, both showed a great extent of critical, creative as well as communication to resolve issues and problems that appeared.

 

Part A

Research:

  1. Our research abilities lacked as we did most of our brainstorming on paper with ideas we previously had in our heads. This lead to a crowd of ideas that had to be cut to size to be able to be incorporated into our project.
  2. We tried to copy the design shown in the video and it did not work. We checked the channel and found a tutorial that showed it in greater depth.
  3. Our research was mostly about the machines and not how to link them we needed to improvise ourselves to connect the two things together.

Design:

  1. We wanted our project to be above and beyond which lead to some issues relating to the size and scale of the project and the space we had to work with. We used some critical and creative thinking to work our way around the problem which was our lack of space and an awkward backing.
  2. Originally we wanted to run the track along with the top of the table but we quickly ran out of space. We then changed the direction the track moved in so it would run off the table gaining more speed and granting us more space.
  3. A design issue we had was designing the winding track as it was hard to mount onto the wall. We ended up not using it in the project but it took up some time as we both wanted it to work.

Materials:

  1. Gathering materials were not a problem as most of it we could find at our homes or in the shop. Finding materials that fit best for the project was a little bit more of a challenge. For example, we needed to test multiple different Hotwheels as each one had a different mass of weight and mass. In the end, we found a car that suited the track the best and one to carry the stylus on its back.
  2. The glue was a problem as it didn’t stick to all the surfaces. We fixed this problem by simply reinforcing it with tape and extra support.
  3. Tracks were a problem as the cardboard wasn’t smooth enough to carry the car the proper distance. With help of Erics HotWheel tracks, it made the cars move faster and smoother.

Construction:

  1. Constructing the tracks needed was not a challenge as Martin and I knew what was needed from each other but keeping it attached to the wall was hard as tape would not hold and the push pins used are not strong enough. We approached Mr. Romani with our problem and he advised us in making little wedges to help support the main build.
  2. A construction issue that was the most problematic was the little release pin. The pin didn’t have enough force to be pulled so we needed to attach it to something heavy to ensure its release.
  3. Dominoes were very annoying as they would bounce and hit things or fall unexpectedly. We put a safe space to make sure if one falls it doesn’t hit the others as well as a barrier.

construction:

  1. In the making of a pulley which included a wheel, the production of the wheel ended up working but was not very good looking as I cut it out using an Exacto knife which led to many straight edges which made it look like more of an octagon than a circle. Mr. Romani saw this flaw and showed us how using a disc sander and a stable surface we can sand away the rough edges to make an almost perfect circle which was much more pleasing to look at.
  2. The wall was awkward as there was a lip poking out so we incorporated it into our project after it was causing mounting problems for our track.
  3. The last Hotwheels track was at too steep of a height so the car kept failing to make it to the end. We fixed this by giving the Hotwheels track support to make it less of a drop which worked perfectly.

Part B

Things learned:

1. How to give extra support using little pieces of folded cardboard.

2. How to sand an almost perfect circle using a hand drill and the disc sander.

3. That the simple things are not always the easiest. But can be the best solution.

4. How to do at-home chiropractor.

5. How to half cut the cardboard so it’s easier to fold.

Part C

Self Evaluation:

Grade: A

Martin and I came to class everyday repaired to work. Both came on time in good spirits. Martin and I worked well together as we worked efficiently and finished early enough to not worry about time. No matter how many mistakes were made we never got frustrated, we simply worked together to solve the problem. We socialized with other groups as well to get to see their progress for ideas of our own. When we needed help we would occasionally ask for help but we would always try and figure it out ourselves first. We would plan ahead before starting as we got materials together before starting, of course, there was some improvisation along the way but most of the main parts were planned beforehand. We also stayed in during a lunch break to get ahead in our project which really helped us with a problem we struggled with. An improvement we can have is maybe a better plan as most of our ideas were rough ideas that evolved into little side parts to the main projects.

 

Video:

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