User:Brad9621/Project One Individual Weekly Update

Project Preference

 * 1) MakerBot PLA Material Characterization
 * 2) Shaker Table
 * 3) FESTO Manipulator

Problem Statement
''In one or two sentences, describe the project that your group will be working on. Identify what CDIO phase (Conceive, Design, Implement, or Operate) your group will complete in this project cycle.''

Project Plan
Briefly describe your group's plan for the next 4 weeks, including major tasks that will be completed each week.

Week 1 Narrative
''My group and I are working on the Automatic Shaker Table project, which is suppose to simulate an actual earthquake and all of its destruction. We first came up with questions to ask ourselves in order to start this project making it easier to figure out how to design this. We came to find out we needed certain parts from our individual tasks in order to build our project. For my job apart of this project is to make a code that allows an arduino to make the shaker table automatic and have a feature of different frequencies for different types of earthquakes. I started researching on how to use coding and started developing a code for the arduino."

Week 2 Narrative
''During the past week of work on our project we have our basic design for our project done. Inside a 3ft by 3ft by 6in box there will contain a cord attached to the arduino as our main curcuit device, every other device will somehow be connected to the arduino one way or an other. Attatched to the arduino is a breadboard that has a motor, an on/off swith and a frequency knob which will all be controlled through the arduino. Putting all this contents in will need a certain type of binding to hold the arduino and breadboard to the box; than an other binding for the motor to be held up straight for the gears to be pointing up to fit perfectly on a jagged long gear piece for the board to pivot back and forth when turned on. I mainly came up with this design concept and my group agreed on the design. My main task for the week was finding a code for the arduino to use to turn on/off and power the motor with controlled fluctuating magnitudes when using this device. I reasearched many different codes and looked back through lessons about the arduino to find a code that could power a motor by a certain fruquency knob. I only succeeded in finding a way to power the motor and not do much else, the code cannot controll any fruquencies as of yet."

Week 3 Narrative
Breakdown of our design

During this week of our engineering group I took it upon my self to draw schematics of the entire design of our shaker table to scale using my engineering notebook as well as complete a overview of our design on a power point. With these schematics drawn any person will be able to have the ability to build a shaker table of their very own. Each drawing is broken down to each main component of the shaker table, giving the person trying to build this project a picture of the base, moving platform, electrical pieces/wiring placements and all the materials they will need to know to build this device.

The Platform (moving board)

In the picture to the right u will see a drawn picture of the moving platform that will rest on two dowel rods that will be freely roaming in between four axles secured on the base. The scale of each square in the picture is the same as 2 inches, solid dark lines are the edges and dotted lines meant there is wood underneath this separated part; Dots mean there are 4" ceiling hooks dug into specific places the wood and other mechanical pieces are labeled and listed. What the platforms main purpose is to support a range of certain types of small scale building models weighing between 4-7 pounds while oscillating back and forth, about an inch, to test if the strength of this model can withstand a certain magnitude of an earthquake. The magnitude of the earthquake will be controlled by a certain knob, using a code on an arduino, to test different levels of magnitude of small building models. The platform itself will be attached by a long flat metal piece screwed to the platform and screwed to a rotating metal disk connected to a motor through a gear system. If someone were to turn the machine on, the gear system would cause the motor to turn. Rotating the metal piece attached to the platform around in a circle causing the board to go back and forth.

The Base

Week 4 Narrative
During this week in the progression of our project we have most of our design done and ready for it to move onto the next stage in development. My task during this week was finalize the design of our project so i went back through and looked at the dimensions and measurements of the entire design that my group agreed on. From looking back through our designs i found that we needed to get rid of the cord to power the arduino and replace it with a battery. using a battery will be better for our project because it will give you a specific amount of voltage that will be labeled on the battery and there is no way that the motor will have to much power or to little power. As a group we did the CDIO report together and when doing so we made a list of all the components and materials we need to have for the project to be built. And in doing so i found some problems with the measurements that can be adjusted when building the final design or fixed in the drawing. Throughout the week our biggest problem was finding the correct code to work the motor and be able to control the frequency using a knob attached to the arduino. Luckily we have found the correct code to work the arduino and all that is left is the correct connection to the circuitry to power the motor and have the arduino do its job.