final project -- weekly assignments -- about me -- fab academy

Week 18: Straight Into The Abyss

OK, doing this along the handbook...

What is the deadline? How much time do I have left?

June 11th, 3 days more or less. Way less than I like to have.

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

How will I complete the remaining tasks in time?

If only I knew... As I'm writing this, it's the early morning of June 8th. Cutoff for project documentation is June 11th. That doesn't leave much room for planning.

The overall plan is:

What has worked?

The electronics work, so do the motors. 3D printing of the plastic parts seems to work fine, but is far from finished. The software is partly there, all the low-level stuff works.

What hasn't?

Time. And work (as in work-work). Also, my migraine is acting up way too much. So... As of now, all that really went wrong was any kind of project plan.

What questions still need to be resolved?

How do I get all parts printed in time?

How do I get the Software done in time?

How do I get the documentation done in time?

What have you learned?

A whole lot, actually. I'm not new to doing mechanical work, or CNC work, and I'm working in electronics design and microcontroller programming as a day job, so I treated Fabacademy as a chance to do things differently, either by trying new tools, or by trying new workflows. I have learned a lot doing that, from new CAD tools (I'm now actually using openSCAD on a regular basis...) to actually taking the time and learning how to implement a CAN bus interface or using modern CAM tools. I might also learn to program that mighty beast called "PC".

I have built a lot of my own tools during the assignments, often due to the fact that the tools for the job just were not there - The improvised 3-axis mill that Daniel and I built one night is a prime example of that, the CAM "toolchain" we used is another one. The situation has become a bit better about that since then, as both Daniel and I now work in different labs, and have access to the equipment of those labs - Which opens up new possibilities for learning, again, like the large 4-axis mill and the CNC plasma cutter at the Anomalous Materials Laboratory Laboratory for Process Engineering.

I also learned that there are nice and helpful people at other fablabs, like our friends at Kamp-Lintfort, who could help us when we didn't have the tools for a job. That was a really cool experience.

Week 18: Original Version

OK, doing this along the handbook...

What is the deadline? How much time do I have left?

June 11th, more or less exactly one week from now. That is, basically, like tomorrow.

What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?

A lot of weekly assignments are done, with only Moulding & Casting and the Wildcard Week remaining. Some of them are not really documented yet, though, and there are some evil little details missing about the documentation of others. Quite a lot of work left to do here.

The electronics for my final project are there, at least the minimum of what I need to get it moving, and they are tested. They work. A lot of the motorboard software is also there, and running, so I don't really see a problem with that. What is not there at all is software for the brain board, and I'm not sure how to deal with that yet.

The mechanics for my final project are not there yet. I have an idea of how the machine as a whole should work and look, and I have a few pages of sketches of how parts of it should work. I have also ordered parts, like the linear guides and a lot of vacuum stuff, and odds and ends like magnetic standoffs for boards.

How will I complete the remaining tasks in time?

If only I knew...

I was blocked from doing anything of value for six weeks. So, those six weeks are missing from my original thoughts about the time scale of different parts of this project. I'm not a wizard, and I can't stretch time, so most probably, things will not work out. I have taken time off work this week, and hope to get as far as I can, though.

What I'm trying to do right now is: Get a reduced functionality version of my final project running for the cutoff date and do the final project presentation. That is the highest priority, as the next chance of doing it is in January. Then, I will participate in those group assignments that are not finished yet, as I don't want to block Daniel from finishing. Lastly, if there is any time left, I will try to finish the weekly assignments. They get the lowest priority, as another chance of getting them ticked off seems to be later this year.

Chaotic as things are, I will probably do some work on the unfinished assignments at some earlier point than planned, as if there is a chance to do something cool, I will take it.

 

An emergency measure right now might be to ditch the plan of building a placer, and build something mechanically simple, like a new version of our Whiteboard Drawbot. I really don't like doing that, but it might be an alternative, since the mechanics are really simple, and I already have a lot of what I need to get it running on a software side. I'm keeping that idea kind of open, and I might do it if I think that, around Wednesday or Thursday, I'm not far enough with the placer.

What has worked?

The redesigned motor boards have worked from the start. As has older software like the PWM stuff. Sending CAN messages has, odd as it is, worked from the start, too. Receiving them didn't need too much debugging, either, so the whole CAN bus experiment is a success to me.

Misusing the motorboards for the Networking assignment has also just worked, which opens up a possibility of ditching the brain board for now, and using a motorboard and an FTDI cable instead. That could save me a lot of time for that first working version.

What hasn't?

Not a lot, actually. The first tests with a small, cheap vacuum pump off Amazon showed that I won't be using it. I have a different one now, and not tested it yet. Mostly, though, my time management went wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. So, while I do know that I did more than the minimum, and took up a very complex and complicated final project, it still could have worked just from that. If I hadn't switched to a different lab in 2016 (effectively switching from "I'm free to do fabacademy even if it's 70 hours a week" to "I'm working 40 hours a week and don't have enough spare time to finish"), I could have finished then. If I hadn't been blocked for the last couple of weeks, things would look a lot better now. I can't change that, though.

What questions still need to be resolved?

Do I get the brain board running, from a software side?

How do I do the user interface at the computer? (I know what I want it to look like, but... I've never done such a thing before).

Does the vacuum grabbing work with the material I have now?

There is also the part of the mechanical design left to solve.

What have you learned?

A whole lot, actually. I'm not new to doing mechanical work, or CNC work, and I'm working in electronics design and microcontroller programming as a day job, so I treated Fabacademy as a chance to do things differently, either by trying new tools, or by trying new workflows. I have learned a lot doing that, from new CAD tools (I'm now actually using openSCAD on a regular basis...) to actually taking the time and learning how to implement a CAN bus interface or using modern CAM tools. I might also learn to program that mighty beast called "PC".

I have built a lot of my own tools during the assignments, often due to the fact that the tools for the job just were not there - The improvised 3-axis mill that Daniel and I built one night is a prime example of that, the CAM "toolchain" we used is another one. The situation has become a bit better about that since then, as both Daniel and I now work in different labs, and have access to the equipment of those labs - Which opens up new possibilities for learning, again, like the large 4-axis mill and the CNC plasma cutter at the Anomalous Materials Laboratory Laboratory for Process Engineering.

I also learned that there are nice and helpful people at other fablabs, like our friends at Kamp-Lintfort, who could help us when we didn't have the tools for a job. That was a really cool experience.

final project -- weekly assignments -- about me -- fab academy

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