User:Nathanhall78/ENES-100/Project0

Week1 Narrative
I worked on a design of fin ray made of household items, initially using fishing line as the outer flexible bands, and cut sections of a wood shim as the struts. The wood shim kept splintering and not breaking off in neat lines as I cut it, so I abandoned that avenue. I found black plastic zip ties, and decided to use those instead. I cut the zip ties into sections of 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20, 23, 25, 28 and 30, using the little ribs as a measure.

The fishing-line as the external sides for the fin ray wouldn't stay connected to the zip tie struts, either with a notch cut out, or with glue, so I decided to try boring a hole through the strut. As I was doing this, I realized that the external sides need to be rigid; not a string-like material.

Here is the associated /CDIO/ page.

My Second Task
My next step is to find a material for the external side that is rigid yet flexible. My first thought is towards a zip tie, itself.

Week2 Narrative
Continuing from last weeks work on the Fin Ray, I decided to use a zip tie as the outer flank, and glue the struts to it using super glue. The finished product looked fine, however upon testing the design by flexing from side to side, I saw immediately that the struts needed to have a pivot or some kind of flexible joint where they attached to the flank. The struts would not allow the flank to flex, and the struts also broke away from the flank. So now, I have to find something that will allow the strut-flank joint to pivot as the ray is flexed. /CDIO/ page.