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12-Mechanical Design, Machine Design

Assignments

Mechanical Design (part 1 of 2)

Group assignment:

  • Design a machine that includes mechanism + actuation + automation + application
  • Build the mechanical parts and operate it manually
  • Document the group project

Individual assignment:

  • Document your individual contribution

Machine Design (part 2 of 2)

Group assignment:

  • Actuate and automate your machine
  • Document the group project

Individual assignment:

  • Document your individual contribution

Have you answered these questions?

  • Documented the machine building process to the group page
  • Documented your individual contribution to this project on your own website
  • Linked to the group page from your individual page as well as from group page to your individual pages
  • Shown how your team planned, allocated tasks and executed the project (Group page)
  • Described problems and how the team solved them (Group page)
  • Listed possible improvements for this project (Group page)
  • Included your design files (Group page)
  • You need to present your machine globally and/or include a 1 min video (1920x1080 HTML5 MP4) + slide (1920x1080 PNG) (Group page)

The road map i made for this week can be accesed here

Group Assignment

First of all, for our project this week will be related to a project that already exists in our lab, but we’ll be modifying it. It’s called the radio telescope, and it’s a project under the panoptees unit we have at our school.

So, to describe how it works, there will be a mount and a cradel. The mount in the first model is supposed to be manualy moved, and takes time and effort to change every time, so our project will be a mount that can move in z-axis and y-axis direction.We;ll be using steper moters, gear control and make this mount.The horn part of this project is what collectes the signals. We won’t necessaryly be working on the horn, due to the main requirements being fulfiled with the mount itself, but the panoptees unit in our school will further develope our project int he futrure, so it gives it more of a purpose making it as well.

model

This is how the current radio telescope we have in the lab looks!

Writeup

What is the Radio Telescope

poster

What is a Radio Telescope? - The radio telescope collects radio waves from nearby stars, planets and the milky way galexy.

Who or What started it? - DSPIRA(Digital Signal Processing in Radio Astronomy) is an NSF Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science Site (Located in the west virginia university laneDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering.) - This program was designed to be provide teachers the training and materials in the field of Radio Astronomy. These lessons involve all aspects of Radio astronomy from building a radio telescope to its operation

What are the parts of the telescope? - A horn telescope, which consists of 3 major parts: the antenna, the support stand, and the back-end electronics. The cost is only a few hundred dollars

You can read more on this here

Planing and modifications

For this years group assignment, we decided to make a automated redio telescope. This idea was inspired by the radio telescope model we have in our own school

For this telescope, we planed on making it move its y-axis and z-axis automated. In the actual model, we moved it manually, so it save energy and time, we decided to work on a model that could function easier.

While planing the sketch of this, we wanted to scale it down as much as possible to finish making it on time.We tryed to keep the structure similar to the real model with changing a few things like the support and gearing system to fit into the requirements for current project.

sketch1

After deciding how to divide the work and sorting out a few more things, we made this sketch.

sketch2

Individual assignment

This is where I will document my contributions to this project. For this week, I was assigned with the designing tand fanafacturing part of our assignment. Even so, in the end I made quite a lot of useless designs, and we ended up not using them. Even so, I’ll document what I learned here. And also thre small things I helped with.

Project planing

sketch1

This was the first sketch we had for our project. We planed on scaling down the model we had in our lab as much as we could I I believe we did a pretty good job of it. After discusing and planing, dividing and adjusting our time, we made a new sketch.

sketch2

Designing the Cradel

In the end, there was a problem with my design, with the fact the sloths were weak, and the measurments were changed in the end, so our local instructer helped us remake it in the end. Even so I’ll include the design here.

Firstly, these were the parameters I used for making the model

parameters

After some discusion with my seniors, we decided to add sloths to make sure to make the screws sturdy.

Error - In the end, when checking this model with my local instructor, he said the wood may be to thin the screw from the side, so we may end up breaking the wood. - Secondly, he also said the sloths in the design would not be stable and would fall off, so we didn’t use this design in the end.

sloth

Here’s the final layout for the pieces i didn’t print. I believe I learned and recovered my knoledge on designing after this though, so I’m not too disapointed

layout

Designing the Base

Another assignment I was given was to design the base where we would place our project.For this part, it just required me to make the base so that we can arrange the wires and electronics underneath

tabel

This is the final result of the base with the rest of the electronics.

base

Designing the Moter Case

During this part of the process, there were many moter cases we were experimenting with, so I ended up making multipe moter cases by mistake. Either ways, here are all the moters I mistakely made a case for

moters

1 2

And this is the last one I used.

3

This is how the case turned out in the end.

case result

Cutting the Designs

From now onwards we did the cutting and assembling ass a group(mainly a senior though), So I’ll include some of the pictures.

lens

On a unnecessary note, we also found this wood in the trash, so I guess thats an achivement as well!(Our local instructor told us where the wood was, we just selected it kinda)

board

And I guess thats it! I didn’t really help at all compared to my teamates, so I really hope next time i’ll be able to help. In fact, most of this week i spend updating my documentation because i was really behind compared to the others. I again would like to apologize and say thank you to my seniors!

Design Files

Thank you


Last update: April 24, 2025