As of February 3, we have gathered the tools and parts we believed were necessary from last semester’s plans to start assembling the prototype, such as the scissor jack, existing wheel lift, wheels, and steel square tubing. After receiving the scissor jack component, the team found it significantly heavier than expected. Although device weight was not one of our specifications, we swapped out the original scissor jack for a lighter one to make the prototype more manageable for a potential user to maneuver and move around.
We started making the base of the device first. One of the steel square tubes was cut to the correct size, which is longer than the length of the arm. This steel-cutting process can be seen in Figure 1. We then attempted to drill holes with the drill bits we had on hand, but we had difficulties. Five holes were semi-drilled in 1 of the steel tubes, and eight holes were required for our design. Figures 2-4 show our attempts to drill holes in the steel tubes. The holes are necessary for nuts and bolts to assemble the structure of our prototype. The team planned to perform prototype fabrication without the help of the mechanical engineering department machinist, but this approach may need to be changed.
From February 4 to 17, the team plans to continue building the prototype. Prototype fabrication is believed to be at a bottleneck right now because we can’t continue until the right-sized holes are drilled in the steel tubes. Our current plan is to talk to the mechanical engineering department machinist, possibly other machinists, or those with access to a drill press to assist with fabrication. We anticipate delays with meeting with the university machinist or another machinist and getting our necessary parts back.
Alternatively, if these options take too much time or are too costly, we may have to buy specialized drill bits for steel. For other work we completed during this period, the placement of the steel tubes was marked and laid out to visualize the prototype’s base. They were also marked with dots and hole sizes for a potential machinist to drill. This visualization of the prototype’s base and the markings are present in Figure 5.
Figure 1: Steel Cutting
Figures 2-3: Attempted Hole Drilling
Figure 5: Prototype Base Visualization & Markings
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