Our biggest accomplishment for week 9 has been building the prototype body. This 2nd body is made of with a sturdier sheet metal that was water jet cut. We received a 2D flat plate cut to specification that was later bend and weld in some areas to give it its 3D body. There were some minor modifications needed to be made to the prototype such as silicon filling the bottom so that it portrays a solid bottom instead of hollowed. We also had to make all holes to mount some of the components such as motor, solenoid valve, and the back plate to cover all components from being exposed. The water jet cut 2D model did not come with the material to make the supplement dispensing housing; therefore, we also had to make this part separately. The initial plan was to 3D print the housing but it was not done in time so that it could be test with. It was secondly manufacture from wood but due to the force needed to insert a cartridge and hold it in place without having air leaks it would not work. Lastly, we finally manufacture the syringe housing from a sheet plate that was manageable to cut but sturdy enough that 5 lb. of force would not break the connections at the corner or from the body over all. In the process, we realize that having the right tools to do the job make the manufacturing a lot less time consuming and doable. Not having the right cutter, caused us a numerous hour of cutting with a hand saw and not having a disk grinder was also very time consuming due to having to do all by hand. One set of calipers was all we had a s a measuring device and it made it difficult to use when needing to measure thing longer than 12 inch such as cutting tubing to exact desire length. Having a place to work and having the appropriate tool is time saving so that time can be allocated properly in fine tuning the functionality instead of building the just the body. However, after a team of 5 spending over 48 hours to manufacture the body the prototype body has been finalized.

Integrated Pet Feeder for Health and Wellness, Sandy Moreno