One good news is we finished the hand mold and already tested the strength of our linkages and bars. Aluminum turned out is a really good material for this project. We will finish the 3D scanning in week 5 and hopefully the main parts in week 6.
Renew 3D Print Winter Wk 3: Design!
Over the weekend prior to week 3 the S.P.A.M. team came back from retreat in Carlsbad. The team definitely knew each other on a personal level and became ready to tackle the rest of the quarter! Coming back to UCI, the team designed, 3D printed, and tested a new mesh that will be installed to the bottom of the grinder. …
Renew 3D Print Winter Wk 2: Grinding Through Week 2
The outcomes and objectives from our team’s Week 2 workshops revolved around performing some trial tests with our current plastic grinder setup as well as benchmarking different laser diameter controllers for the extruding process and spooling process. The first grinder tests were done as the baseline tests to see how well the grinder would perform as is. For the first …
Renew 3D Print Winter Wk 1: Making 3D Printing Environmentally Sustainable
Hello everyone! We are excited to be a part of the MAE 189 community. We are a team of environmental, mechanical, computer, and electrical engineers as well as art students that have been working for almost two years on developing a system to recycle plastic waste into useable filament. Our external website can be found at: http://bit.ly/ucispam Know more about …
Mar 13, 2016 I’ve got the power!
Remember that song? I remember it. I forget the rest of the lyrics (I could Google it, but where is the fun in that?). Approximately a month ago we receive a couple of solar panels from one of the professors in charge of our research project. We’ve decided, in addition to the bikes, we want to integrate this energy source. …
Week 4 Mechanical Aid for Traction on Ice
This week we are going to focus on the detail design for the four bar linkage and the flip mechanism. One of our team member Ban Lan is working on his special design where he worked last quarter. Four bar linkage design now has a better design concept and improvement on its motion. The achievement is that we now replace …
Tank Design
This week, Michael Cole and Alejandro Martin worked rigorously last week to finalize the design for our tank. Our tank will include a 6in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe to minimize turbulence and maximize the flow rate of the water. This will give us better results to evaluate our fin’s thrust. To do this, we will cut the pipe longitudinally into …
Week 4 Autonomous Boat Update
It’s week 4 and the team is in full swing of the construction of the boat. The goal is to have the craft finished by the end of this quarter so that it can complete its journey from California to Catalina by the second week of March. Because last quarter was all about research and design and this quarter is …
Krobohand – Week 2 & 3: Tensile Test Results
These past two weeks focused on adapting the finalized finger design for tensile testing in the Instron machine. Once we had our adaptation printed, we were able to successfully run a series of four tensile tests with the help of the Engineering Tower Lab Manager, Steve Weinstock. We tested a single tolerance design of 0.45m, four times, and averaged the …
Solar Airplane Winter Quarter Week 4
Hello readers, The project has been following the set time line adequately and will begin manufacturing in the coming week. The biggest challenge for the project is safety of our members when operating machining equipment and handling carbon fiber. Our Safety Officer has compiled a list of safety supplies to be purchased for our members to use in our lab …