User:SuperBlobMonster/Strandbeest

Collaborate with my team members to determine what each of our tasks are.
I will be the person doing the majority of the recording.

Write problem/project Goal
Complete designing and building the body of a wind powered walking mechanism / strand beast

My First Task
-none-

Summary of actual work over first weekend
I did all that I had planned to accomplish.

Week1 Narrative
I drilled holes in a hardened steel bar which will be used to make the crank shaft for the legs, taking time to photograph and note what we are doing in order to document our progress

My Second Task
Add information to the team page and conceptualize my own idea for the strand beast's legs, independently from my team mates.

Summary of actual work over second weekend
I first made the blocks of wood that will be used to make the proper 120 degree angle between the different phases of the legs.

Building the legs from a combination of the two joints may save some effort and yield good results, but I might consider going with only revolute joints in order to ensure reliability of what we build.

 A note for resources 

I presume we are going to be using berrings to allow the parts to roll smoothly, and by my count, if we do not put berrings in the attachment points of the legs, we would need 4, but if we put a berring in each of the attachment points for each of the legs, we would need 16.

Week2 Narrative
Tell a detailed story describing what you did for your team over the weekend.

My Third task
Finalize designs for the leg, build a model and debate which model is better, legos or wood

Summary of actual work over third weekend
How is what you did different than what you planned?

Week3 Narrative
Tell a detailed story describing what you did for your team over the weekend.

My Fourth task
Record what you are planning on doing for the team during the fourth weekend.

Summary of actual work over fourth weekend
We had hoped to produce a fully functional strandbeest by the end of the fourth week, but that turned out to be a fail, I developed a model that seemed promising, but it turned out to have discrepancies in the measurements. All in all, we learned a lot, and hopefully the next group that comes along learns from what we did.

Week4 Narrative
Over the weekend, I spend a lot of time developing and building legs for the strandbeest.

I chose to use popsicle sticks for all aspects of the leg as opposed to building wooden triangles.

the joints were rather stiff, and should be one of the major redesign points of the project.

Measurements need to be incredibly precise, on the scale we were working on, +-.6mm or .025in is about how much wiggle room you have.

When drilling the larger holes, I found that the drill press had a tenancy towards making the hole further out than I had intended it to be punched, be wary of measured vs actual.

Drill out multiple sets at once, so that you do not have to mass manufacture parts individually (see pictures)

I gave up on the idea of the washers, though they probably would have helped a bit, it would have been far too time consuming to punch out hundreds of washers from soda cans.

Complete Team Page

 * check*