Engineering Projects/Igloo/Howard Community College/Fall2012/p1-502-lash

Problem Statement
To prepare, design, and construct an igloo with the use of a computer controlled snow machine and pressure washer.

Team Members
Ahmed Murray Stapko Harris

Summary
This team:
 * Searched for videos, books, instructions, etc on how to build an igloo quickly and effectively even in places with little to no snow.
 * Acquired a pressure washer and fixed some technical problems related with the hose
 * Spent lots of time on the math behind an igloo in order to make an arduino sketch and we are pretty close
 * posted links or at least information on all leads on the wiki page
 * Traveled to many different stores to acquire pieces needed to build a snow maker as well as repair a pressure washer
 * Covered tons of helpful information on safety instructions on pressure washers for the next team
 * Purchased
 * developed a safety protocol for testing the quality for the pressure washer hose repair
 * designed apparatus to use for testing the pressure washer hose

Story
On the first week Ahmed, John, and Grant searched for videos and tutorials on how to build a snow igloo. We reviewed the previous teams page to give us a better understanding and starting point. On the second week Ahmed and John worked on the math portion of the igloo - specifically the dimensions of a snow igloo. John acquired a pressure washer and started repairing its hose. Grant found snow makers online that uses pressure washers as well as the required pieces and instructions on how to build one. Ahmed helped John fix the pressure washer and found safety tutorials on high pressure hydraulic pressure washers. On the third week Grant collected all the necessary pieces for the project and personal upgrades to the snow machine and consolidated them all into a PDF document with the picture full name and SKU number. He did this by first going to the Home Depot web site and going to the plumbing section and tracking down every piece in the plumbing section by what it looks like. We then discovered that the atmospheric temperature might affect the machine by freezing the compressor and power washer valve. John visited three stores and a few websites, and found three possible solutions to the hose problem, but managed to get new fittings pressed onto the hose to splice it an hour before class. Ahmed spent the entire weekend trying to become an expert on hydraulic pressure systems safety and reading the official instruction manual and preparing to finally test our pressure washer with the hose at HCC. In addition, he also started working on the Igloo homepage. On the fourth week, John spent most of his time reading literature that Ahmed linked to in an effort to understand safety hazards and possible ways to prevent them. Based on the reading, he started a safety page to present to HCC plant engineering. He took down some notes concerning a remote control console, and based on tips in Ahmed's links, and developed a hydraulic schematic depicting a preliminary set of test apparatus. To draw the hydraulic schematic, he looked up symbols and learned their meaning and how to include them in a drawing. Ahmed spent most of the weekend trying to perfect the homepage in terms of a detailed story, problem statement, and summary so that the next team could pick up where we left off with everything they need to know. I also created a "safety checklist" for when we test the pressure washer.

Material List

 * 1. We were planning to use a pressure washer and an air compressor together to make a snow machine. The pressure washer is a CleanForce 1800, the air compressor is a roll-around unit in CL-159. The pressure washer hose  had a hole in it, so we had it professionally spliced by Colliflower, Inc, a service which cost $24.51.


 * 2. The next team will need:
 * parts for the snow machine (these were purchased upon our request, but had not arrived by the close of the semester)
 * parts for the hydraulic test set (these will need to first be selected and sources for them found, and if necessary, purchased)
 * parts for the remote control (most, if not all, of these, should be salvageable from parts in the engineering lab)
 * a video camera and long cable or wireless connection to monitor the hose test from behind a barrier
 * an air compressor. One should be available in CL-159 or CL-160.  Most of the information needed to operate it is written on labels attached to it.

Time
We worked 47 hours and 5 minutes on this project.

Tutorials
tutorials on how to build igloos:


 * Douglas Wilkinson's 1949 film, How to Build an Igloo, published by the National Film Board of Canada


 * U.S. Army Field Manual covering igloo construction


 * recent igloo construction at UIUC

(we found the Army Field Manual link and UIUC igloo link on the Wikipedia page on Igloos

tutorials generated by our work on this project:


 * safety protocol for testing the quality for the pressure washer hose


 * the operating manual for the pressure washer (we didn't make this, we just found it online)


 * apparatus for testing the pressure washer hose

Tutorials for how to read hydraulic schematics:


 * article by user Suvo at brighthubengineering.com(this covers meaning of placement of blocks in valve symbols)


 * hydraulic schematic symbols tutorial at solenoidvalvesuk.com (especially the graphic at the bottom explaining the solenoid valve symbol elements)


 * Jim Pytel's video tutorial on hydraulic system components and symbols

Next Steps

 * design and write a computer program that can generate angles, dimensions, and blueprints/models of each block in the igloo given certain input parameters such as diameter or height
 * complete design of and build a set of apparatus to test the quality of the pressure washer hose splice
 * obtain parts for and build a prototype snow machine
 * test the snow machine when a cold day is available
 * build the igloo