Problems

21/03/2018

Of course, as most things in life, nothing goes exactly as planned. Today, we tested our machine, and we have realized that the automatism technology for the launching of the birdies does not work. The problem is that when we put the metal stick between the handles with the forks attached to it, the stick will not remove itself when the machine advances. The reason for this is because the upward tension of elastics forcing on the forks is much bigger then the force of friction excreted between the wheel and the stick when advancing. This means that, when we launch the vehicle, the front left wheel and the stick dont move, leading to the birdies not being launched. We are currently looking for a solution for this but fear that we might have to complete the competition tomorrow with only a semi-automatic machine, which will make us lose quite a few points. Hopefully, we will be capable of collecting enough points to permit us to make up for this handicap.

Ready For Launch

20/03/2018

A few updates:
- the catapult has now been constructed with the forks, and is launching well.
- The automatism system for the catapults is working, and the stick is sliding well on the when              moved. It needs to be tested with the tension and the sticks tomorrow.
- Machine final assembly will be tomorrow, and it is scheduled for immediate testing on the same day.
- We have decided to name our creation Shelby. This is because the Ford Shelby car is a rear wheel drive car like our machine, that produces a lot of horsepower. Ironically, ours probably generates zero to no horsepower with it's amazing rubber band system.

For now, everything is looking in place, and we are confident that we will manage to obtain the ten full points for our machine.

Change of plans

14/03/2018

The two teammates have met up at Oliver's house to discuss what the new machine should look like. After some research and discussing, we have concluded that we would like to be the smallest possible, all while having it be powerful enough to hopefully launch into the last section. To add up, we would like it to be naturally powered and to be made entirely with recyclable material.

Please Read!!!!

Hello, it has came to our attention that all of Darius' blog posts since the march brake have been posted on the wrong blog. For that reason, all of his posts are being reposted on this day, March 23rd and might not be in chronological order. He will write the date of happening for each post in it.

Sorry for the inconvenience, the team

Progress with the new machine

15/03/2018

The base of the new machine has been constructed! The only problem that has been found for now is that the wheels that we intended to use, made out of plastic bottle caps are not big enough or slick enough to advance the machine. The solution we have found for this is to instead use some old skateboard wheels that Darius found in the basement, which should work better.

Technical advances

19/03/2018

While constructing the machine, the original plan was to use cardboard boxes to keep the birdies from falling when they where launched. What we realized pretty much immediately is that when they are held back in that way, the birdies do not fly very far because they are shot at a less then optimal angle. After some testing, we found out that when placing the birdies in the forks, they can stay put in them for a longer period when being launched. This lets them fly off at a lower angle and incidentally, fly further.

En fin de compte...

Dans le cours de physique mécanique, un projet fut assigné aux étudiants. Ce projet avait comme but de bâtir une machine autonome, capable de parcourir une certaine distance par elle-même et, par la suite, de tirer des volants de badminton dans une zone de jeu, essayant donc de marquer le plus de points possibles. Notre projet personnel était de fabriquer une machine de petite et simple que tout le monde serait capable de reproduire sans difficulté. Nous l’avons nommé Shelby. La principale source de fonctionnement de Shelby est à l’aide d’élastiques. Pour propulser notre véhicule vers l’avant, nous avons « crinqué » les élastiques en faisant rouler la voiture vers l’arrière sur le plancher. Une fois lâchée, elle commençait à rouler par elle-même sur les roues, placés aux deux extrémités d’un bâton, en avant et en arrière de l’engin. Une chaine d’élastiques relie les deux bouts de bois et, lorsque le véhicule est lâché, il, de déroulent, fessant avancer le véhicule. La raison pour laquelle nous avons utilisé cette façon pour faire avancer notre véhicule est puisque nous voulions utiliser que des matériaux recyclables et réutilisables. Puisque notre véhicule avait de la difficulté à avancer car les roues tournaient dans le vide, les deux roues arrière ont été recouverts avec du tape d’hockey, ce qui augmente le coefficient de friction dans les roues et donc pour augmente la traction. Pour lancer les moineaux dans la zone, nous avons fabriqués 3 catapultes à l’aide de fourchettes. Nous les avons enroulés avec des élastiques à plusieurs reprises pour que la tension crée par ceux-ci soit assez grande pour propulser nos projectiles. Les fourchettes ont été utilisés puisque les dentes de la fourchette passent au travers des trous des volants, les permettant d’être projetés à un angle plus bas. Un problème rencontré au cours du projet était dans le catapultage des volants. Au début, l’idée était de déposer une tige qui enclenche les catapultes sur la roue d’en avant. Donc, lorsque le véhicule avancerait, la tige tomberait en bas du véhicule après un certain nombre de temps. Cela n’a finalement pas fonctionné, car lorsque nous faisions passer la tige au travers des trou qui retenaient les catapultes, la force de tension vers le haut émise par les élastiques était si grande que la tige ne pouvait plus sortir.

Change off plans

After many failures, complications and difficulties in the creation and execution of the machine, the team met up on Thursday March 15th to discuss about plans. The tam figured out, after around 3 hours of research and brain storming that in the end, the fabrication did not have to be so complicated. The result of this was a new machine, made in the simplest way possible and based on 2 tutorial videos we found online.

Vehicle Propultion Video

Birdie Launching section

Of course, some modifications need to be made. For our machine, the underbody, or the section focussed on the propulsion of the machine, will be longer, around 50 cm if possible (yes that’s a lot of elastics). Secondly, there will be cardboard chassis placed between the two sections so that the birdie launching section can be installed. Also, to make the birdie launching section fully automatic instead of semi automatic, the peace of wood holding back the spoons will be placed at a 45 degree downwards, so that with the force from the stopping of the vehicle, it will slide out and launch the birdies. For this to be possible, the friction between the wood peace and the tape will have to be at a minimum. 

Each member is constructing one part of the machine, and it is expected to be put together on Tuesday for the first test. These changes have been done at the last minute, so to speak, but the team truly believes that it's for the better.

Progress Check 2: Back to Reality

Progress has not been good for now. The team has not been capable of working together for now but will have a few meetings this week. The original plan had to be aborted and a new machine had to be thought about. The difference is that the new machine will push the limits of dimensions and will have a total length of 100 cm. This will permit it to have a dual projectile system which will launch 3 birdies simultaneously at different angles of two pads instead of just one. This measure of action had to be taken because of the clarification of one of the rules, stating that all birdies must land in the same corridor as the one that they have been thrown from. Please note that a detailed plan of this version of the machine will be coming soon.

There have been a few problems encountered along the way, going from problems on the machine itself to problems between teammates. Here is a table showing some of the main difficulties.

Table 1: Difficulties encountered during the project

Machine Difficulties	Project Difficulties
Electrical circuit	Communication
Materials	Darius’ ski racing
Machine dimensions

The problems with the machine have been mostly due to planning and resources. For example, we are currently having trouble finding a used electrical circuit for our machine and will probably be forced to buy components to build a new one our selves. In terms of materials, we wanted to use cardboard as a chassis at the beginning but realized that it wasn’t solid enough to hold up by it self, so we will use wood planks. We tried to use wood planks that were hanging around our homes, but they are not of the right dimensions, so we have started asking around for thinner ones that may suit our machine better. As it has been mentioned in the rules, we would like to minimize the mount of material that we will need to buy and would like to reuse the most of it possible. In terms of the social difficulties, the problems have been mostly with communication and availabilities. In the first place, we did not decide well enough who would work on what. This meant that we where extremely disorganized heading into the spring break. To add up, Darius had ski races all week, and struggled to work on the machine as he was not home. This has all lead up to us being delayed and not have as much progress done as wanted. Not to worry, there are at least three meetings scheduled this week and the machine should be well underway by the end of it.

In terms of the project, around 2 to 3 hours have been spent on the planning and construction of the project. There has not been any face to face meetings yet, but there have been conference calls done on the phone. For the next week, Olivier will continue working on the body of the machine, and on the construction of the wheels and on the suspensions. Meanwhile, Darius will try to work on the electrical circuit and on the launch component of the machine. We expect that 75 percent of the machine should be finished by the end of the week, and that it should be ready for testing by next Monday.