Assignment 12:- Mechanical Design and Machine Week

In the Mechanical Design and Machine Design assignment, I learned a lot about machine design, fabrication, assembly and teamwork this week. The team project taught me the importance of teamwork, communication and sharing responsibilities for the sake of a common goal. As part of the project, I contributed to the design, machine assembly,electronics integration, programming, and documentation, and helped the team with their assigned tasks. I collaborated with team members to solve problems, make design decisions, and ensure the project moved according to the schedule. We worked closely as a team during the week and we managed the resources, materials, tools and time well. We followed the Design Thinking process to understand the requirements, ideate, develop solutions and improve the design of the machine through testing and feedback. This task has also improved my project planning, resource management, documentation and time management skills. We divided the tasks efficiently and worked collectively to complete the machine within the given timeline.

Group assignment tasks
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

Idea Selection Process

At the beginning of the week we had a brainstorm for ideas for our machine design project. After talking through a number of options, we came up with two main ideas:
• String Art Machine
• Clay Printer

We researched both ideas, and looked at the design requirements, machine mechanisms, electronics, programming needs and overall complexity. We talked through the pros and cons of each idea and how they could be executed given the time and resources we had. We were a small team (two students) and did not want a very complicated or ambitious project. After much consideration and planning, we settled on the idea of a Clay Printer, as it was a more feasible project to complete within the time constraints, and gave us the opportunity to demonstrate our mechanical design, electronics integration and programming skills.

Work Distribution and Planning
After we were done with the Clay Printer idea, we divided the work among the team members based on our skills and interests. We are only two students in our team so it was important to divide the tasks well so the project could be done on time. We set up a plan and assigned responsibilities for mechanical design, electronics, programming, fabrication, assembly, testing, and documentation. My main contributions to the project were in the electronics/programming areas including hardware setup, wiring, machine control, and software configuration. Regular discussions helped us to keep track of progress, solve problems and support each other whenever necessary. We managed our time well and completed the Clay Printer within the week we had by clearly splitting the workload and sticking to our project plan.
Ashish Shende:- My main responsibilities included Sketch, hardware development, machine assembly, clay extruder fabrication, 3D printing, laser cutting electronics integration and programming of the Clay Printer.
Arati Bhosale:- Arati was assigned the work of 3D modeling and designing the machine, laser cutting the necessary parts, helping in assembly and assisting in programming and testing.
Final machine video

Clay Printer

Resource Collection and Material Selection After we decided to build the Clay Printer, I first assessed the materials and resources available in our lab and looked for useful components to be recycled from discarded equipment. While I was looking through the resources available, I found an old 3D printer that was no longer being used. We are going to reuse and recycle some parts from the old machine for our project. We disassembled the printer with great care and sorted out the reusable parts. We recovered from it linear guides, bearings, stepper motors, belts, pulleys and other useful mechanical components. This helped to reduce costs and make an efficient use of the available resources.


Sketch
After evaluating the available resources and reusable machine parts, I created a basic sketch of the Clay Printer based on the materials and components that were accessible in our lab. So I gave this sketch to ChatGPT and it generated a visual of my idea. The generated image helped us to visualize the machine design and to refine our ideas before starting the detailed design process.

Based on the available parts and machine components, I measured the dimensions of each part and came up with the initial design idea.

Mechanism selection
For the Clay Printer we decided to use an H-Bot mechanism for the X-Y motion system. The H-Bot design uses belts, pulleys and stepper motors to achieve precise movement while keeping the machine structure simple and lightweight. This was the correct mechanism for our project as it could be assembled with the components salvaged from the old 3D printer.

3D modling
Arati worked on developing the 3d models as per these dimensions and design requirements in SolidWorks and helped refine the overall design.


3D Assembly


cardboard prototype
Then I started to build a prototype of the Clay Printer with cardboard. The prototype was constructed to the exact dimensions of the design to check the machine structure, placement of components and functionality before fabrication. All the cardboard parts were cut to the design dimensions with the laser cutting machine. This allowed us to quickly put together the prototype and check the fit, alignment and general structure of the Clay Printer.
Structural Frame
The structural frame of the Clay Printer was constructed using 20×20 mm aluminum extrusion profiles. The frame gives strength, stability and correct alignment of the machine parts. The aluminum profiles were joined together by T-nuts, M4 bolts and 90-degree angle brackets to create a rigid and sturdy structure. The frame was designed based on the dimensions of the 3D model and supports the H-Bot motion mechanism, extruder system and other machine components.


When the frame was finished we tested it with the cardboard prototype parts. This enabled us to verify the alignment of the structure, the movement of the actuators and the position of other parts of the machine. The testing process allowed us to find and correct all issues before installing the final parts and moving to the full machine assembly.
We then confirm frame and alignment and cut the final machine parts from 6 mm acrylic sheets. The acrylic parts were cut to the design sizes on the laser cutting machine and then assembled on the frame. These parts gave the Clay Printer a solid, accurate and light structure.

After cutting the acrylic parts on the laser cutting machine, we mounted the linear guides onto the main acrylic structure. For fastening and securing the components, we used M3 bolts, M3 nuts, and nylon lock nuts (Nyloc nuts). This ensured that the linear guides were firmly attached and properly aligned for smooth and accurate motion.