17. Machine design

This week I worked with LCCC to document a machine we built while socially distancing. Here is how that went:

Meeting the Team

I will meet the team on June 12th (Friday) at 10:00 AM on a Zoom Meeting. Hopefully everyone shows up! i am already familiar with Chris and Ryan, but I do not know the other two students. I think that we will make a good team still and will get our project done with only a handful of issues.

My Assignment

I am working on documenting our process of building the machine and what it does! After a couple emails with Chris, I was able to get the role to help contribute to the process. I think that I am a strong writer, but I still always need practice in writing about machines. This is especially true when I try to talk about concepts or ideas, not just physical things. I sometimes have a hard time going into detail with something I cannot make tangible (unless I can see it very clearly in my head.)

Zoom Meeting

During the zoom meeting we had on Friday, we discussed what role each of us would take. I took the role of reworking the frame’s design so that it has one vertical and one horizontal facing part. I’m going to search around for some inspiration while also keeping the intial dimensions in mind. I got most of the information that I needed from the group, but there are some things that I just don’t know right now. I don’t know the radius of the axises, so I cannot cut holes in cardboard that will match up with them. If the pieces fit together well, then the file I will send to LCCC can be editted to fit the rods inside.

What program I’m using

I will be using Autodesk to scale an original file from Nadya Peek’s group project here (file will be included soon). Her file was made in Rhino which is a program I do not have access to. I had to convert from Rhino to Fusion by just importing the file in from my desktop to a new drawing. Her extension was an SVG which is comptatible with Autodesk (thankfully.) I used Autodesk because 1.) Its a CAD package I am familiar with and 2.) I think it is easy to export files from it to different programs. You can share 3D and 2D models of the same thing, so 3D compositions and machines are much easier to share. I used to hate Fusion because I was unfamiliar with working with 3D CAD. I felt that I couldn’t get around it or draw on it as easily as I drew on CorelDraw. I always stuck to what I knew best. That was where I failed last year. I didn’t take the step in really learning CAD the way I needed to. Instead of starting with a blank canvas on Fusion, I would highly recommend starting with simple designs off the internet that you can tinker to your preference. This is how I was able to learn Fusion better while making the cardboard boxes for my machine.

My group drew inspiration from Nadya Peek and Luis Belmiro group’s final project here and here

Here are some of the most important links of sites I read before moving any farther.

Link to a site I read up on how to export a Rhino file to Autodesk

Using Autodesk

I’ve been starting to use AutoDesk more seriously ever since I started this project. It is an easier-than-expected to use program! After I imported Nadya’s Rhino file in, I immediately knew I was going to have issues. For one, I didn’t know how to make a true vector design on Fusion360. I did know how to plot out rectangles and draw random stuff, but I didn’t know how to keep things parametric and true to design. Since we have a relatively small laser and Lorain, I needed to make sure that each piece was under 24 x 18. I had to scale the entire machine down, but also make sure that every part would fit together. This was I learned how to keep a design parametric.

This is the final resizing of the vector file!

Vector File

Fusion File (Vector)

Frustrations with working with a group

We had lots of issues with communicating in my group. Sometimes I would send group emails and only get a response from one person when addressing the entire group, other times I would be left completely in the dark by my group when something went wrong. It was only till recently that I learned that my 3D model was wrong and that the parametrics didn’t actually fit. I went to investigate on Fusion360 with an older model that Chris Rohal and the 2016 FabAcademy class made here. I looked over the files and downloaded them, but I found that the alignments were correct when overlapping them. I found this really strange and will have to communicate with my team. I only found out that the design didn’t work until two days ago, so I am making edits and trying to figure out what had happened to it.