Machine Control Capstone Project

Achievements:

• Sort one marble (x1)
• Sort two marbles (x1)
• Sort three marbles (x1)
• Sort four marbles (x1)
• Sort four marbles (x2)
• Sort five marbles (x1)
• Sort five marbles (x2)
• Sort five marbles (x3)
• Use one piston
• Use pneumatics but less than three pistons
• Use one motor

Building the Project:

Finished project:

Glider Challenge: Deliverables

1) An image of your completed glider design.

Final Design:

Building the glider:

2) Your Glider Challenge: Design Phase notes.
1) What's the challenge?

• The challenge of this project is to create a glider out of balsa wood, tissue paper, and glue. The goal of this project is to create a glider that can go the farthest an stay in the air the longest than the other group of students in our class

2) Brainstorm solutions:
Our two main ideas for our plane were:

• large, curved wings

• rounded body (like a boat)

3) Specify:
-Criteria:

• The glider must be able to fly through the air
• can survive multiple test from a 15 foot height
• sturdy and stay together when thrown

-Constraints:

• The main constraint of this project was the limited amount of materials used to create the glider
• Only three materials could be used balsa wood, tissue paper, and glue
• There were only 3' of balsa wood we could use and some pieces were diferent in size and shape making them suit specific parts of the glider.

 4) Develop Solutions





3) Your Glider Challenge: Test Phase notes.

Testing our gilder:

What are your goals for your glider and how did you adjust your design in order to help it better meet them?

• When we tested our gilder it did a bunch of flips so to balance out the weight we made an arrow to stabilize the gilder and make it more aerodynamic
• Although we had to adjust it mulitple times because the wind would break it off when we went outside

4) Your Glider Challenge competition day results. How did your glider perform? What would you change if we competed again?

• Right before we had the gilder challenge the front wings of our gilder broke off.  This made it difficult to repair to it original state so when it was repaired the gilder flip upside down and would fly like that until it hit the ground. What I would do differently next time is to reinforce the front wings so the glider would be more prepared and sturdy for hard impacts. Also, I wouldn't make the plane have a boat like shape on the bottom and put the wood used to stablize and build more current and more wings.

Sketch:

Egg Drop Challenge - interation #1

Total # of Achievements Earned: 25

Idea Generation Achievements:

• Create a sketch of one possible solution. Include labels
• Create a sketch of another possible solution. Include labels.
• Create a sketch of a third possible solution. Include labels.
• Generate a list of materials required for build day.
• Document a plan to ensure materials are brought in on block day.
• Use a decision matrix to justify the approach you chose.

First Solution: 

Second Solution:

Third Solution:

Decision matrix:

Material Prep:

Marco will bring about 8 feet of tin foil and make sure to bring it by writing it in his agenda.

Build Achievements:

• Your materials fit inside a printer paper box
• Your materials fit inside a shoe box
• Your materials fit inside a cigar box
• Your materials fit inside an Altoids box
• Your materials weigh less than 500 grams.
• Your materials weigh less than 300 grams.
• Your materials weigh less than 200 grams.
• Your materials weigh less than 150 grams.
• Your materials weigh less than 100 grams.
• Your materials weigh less than 50 grams.

Material Size:

Our model can fit inside an Altoids box because a large piece of tin foil is very thin and can be fold many times into a thick small shape.

Drop Achievements:

• You hit the butcher paper!
• You hit inside the third ring!
• You hit inside the second ring!
• Your egg broke but the yolk remained intact.
• Your egg cracked but the yolk stayed inside and intact.
• Your egg cracked but was still together.
 Before model was dropped

Egg after the model was dropped

Arithmetic:
115.9g (model with egg) - 67.0g (egg)= 48.9g (model)

Algebra:
Vf ^2 = Vi ^2 + 2ad
Vf = ?
Vi = 0 m/s
a = -9.8 m/s^2
d = 4.37 m
Vf ^2 = Vi ^2 + 2ad
Vf ^2 = 0 + 2(-9.8)(4.37)
Vf ^2 = Vi ^2 + 2ad
Vf  = 9.255 m/s

Geometry:

a^2 + b^2 = c^2
a = 4.37 m
b = 0.5 m
4.37^2 + 0.5^2 = square root of 19.3469
c = 4.40 m

Engineering Program investigation

University of Interest:

• UCSD

Why does this institution appeal to me:

• Close to home
• large engineering department
• many interesting and fastincating areas of study

Ineresting Engineering Programs:

• bioeningeering
• aerospace engineering
• nano engineering

Most Interesting Undergraduate Degree:

• Nano Engineering
• focuses on nanoscale science, engineering, and technology to potentially make valuable advances in biology, medicine, energy conservation, and sensors.
• Mainly focuses on biomedical nanotechnology
• Appeals to me because it's designing complex technology not visible to the eye which later on is possible to lead the world to new standards and improvements
• Also it can lead to a inovation inproducing cures to present uncurable diseases

TED Nathan Myhrvold: Could this laser zap malaria?

1) The TED Organization

• nonprofit organiztion that is devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading
• At first brought people in from three diferent world: engineering, technology, and design.

2) Purpose of website

• Show all the talks that have been popular or interesting of every TED conference
• Allows you to email questions and comment your thoughts about certain topics

3) Topics of interest as engineerers

• ingenious, fascinating, and inspiring
• These would be topics of interest for engineerers because these would be where you can hear about inventions that could be made and also problems that could be solved with your power

4) Top 3 videos of interest

• Daniel Kraft invents a better way to harvest bone marrow: talks about how to get more bone marrow from a donor and with less pain
• Nathan Myhrvold: Could this laser zap malaria?: looks interesting because it talks about making a laser that shoots misquitos out of the air
• Theo Jansen: creates new life with plastic and wood that is powered by the wind

5) Getting Involved:

• There are many education opportunities you can get into this field: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and some sort enivornmental studies
• experience that you would need is building complex machinal machines and programming targeting systems

Survival at Sea

Intro:

• Given a situation of being on a life boat at sea with 15 items
• Told to organize them 1-15 making 1 most important to 15 as least important

My top two choices:

• shaving mirror
• water

My teams choices:

• My group and I agreed that food and water was top priority
• My group thought that the fishing kit and misquote net were pretty high while i didn't
• another thing that my group ranked differently than me was the shaving mirror (could be used as a signal for help by reflecting sunlight)
• We ranked gasoline similar because it could be used as a signal for help
• The group decided how to rank items by discussing what uses they could give and what was right for the situation

Expert Prioritization:

• shaving mirror, water, food, gasoline were ranked at the top
• The top priorities focused on essentials to survive and call for help
• I thought there were no surprises between the group list and actual
• I put more weight into experimental data because it actual proves that your theory or theories will work

3.1.1 Inputs and outputs

Questions from the packet:

• A potentiometer ranges from 46-5000
• You can change the direction or speed of motors by changing it in robo pro by clicking on it or switch the wiring
• Photoresistors get lower when they get closer to the lamp or light
• Phototransistors get higher when they get closer to the lamp or light
• The phototransistors function can be change by switching the program
• Reed switches detect magnetic fields created by electromagnets and behave normally when they are open

1. Examine the wire diagram on the mini switch and describe how the diagram relates to the concepts of normally open and normally closed.

• When the switch is normally open it starts as 0 and goes to 1 when pressed
  
• When the switch is normally closed it does the opposite it start at 1 and goes to 0 when pressed

2. If computers only understand digital signals, then how is a computer able to interpret the analog signals coming from the interface?

• Computers can understand analog signals by converting them to digital signals and the using its intellect to convert it back

3. Why does resistance decrease as the NTC Resistor becomes warmer?

• The resistance decreases because the warmer it gets (temperature going up) the easier it is for the current to flow