click for 2nd semester
8/25/15
just got the new 2016 website link setup, it was really hectic
9/9/15
I have been drawing up a design for the jpl invention challenge, i am going for the old fashioned method by actually sketching out the design.
The idea for the design is to make a turret with a 360 degree range of adjustability along with a scope or sight for aiming at the targets.
9/14/15
The presentations were quite a success, everyone brought good ideas to the table. The pictures below are of my design.
9/22/15
there is a great debate over the design which we will go forward with and create, the two that we are discussing is the turret version that was mentioned above
,and a softball pitcher. going over practicality, the softball thrower would be the simplist to make, but it would be too overpowered for the distance that we have to shoot.
the turret would be more original, after all this is an INVENTION CHALLENGE.
9/28/15
the presentation friday, with mr wilton was a great sucess he didnt have many questions to ask which in my mind means that the design was on par to beging with
it seems like the pitching machine was the most favorable out of all that were presented, mainly because it was something that was easy to perceive working. its something
common that is already in use which makes the building process that much easier.
9/28/15
i Found out what was wrong with my website, i wasn't opening the right folder in filezilla when i was trying to upload, problem solved i've learned.
in other news i ordered a 100w led from ebay along with a led driver and a lens. i hope to make a superbright flashlight with the components. the total is roughly $30 from ebay
but the downside is that it takes almost a month to recieve the components. Below is a pic of what the circuit will look like.
9/29/15
didnt do a sketchup of the jenga block and i instead decided to update the very primitive website. I want to improve it eventually but as of now just uploading simple things is a task in itself
So i was able to talk to an old friend yesterday, shes been having trouble with her boyfriend lately and has been coming to me for advice, but for her situation
im at a loss for words. it seems like the people that say they would never hurt you, the people you love, end up hurting you the most. i feel sorry for her, it seems like she gets close to people
and they just end up going their own way. its somewhat ironic that she's now in my shoes, going through what i went through when we became just friends. Shes going through alot which is why im very proud
to see that she's in an architechtual class and she has an A! I dont even have that in engineering! It makes me happy to see she is looking for a job and working in a class that can prepare her for a career
I only wish i could be that succesfull.
10/1/15
we won the wednesday challenge yesterday, the challenge consisted of transporting a marble with PVC pipe halves towards a plastic ice cream bucket, everyone must have had the marble pass across their pipe
,if at anytime the ball stops or falls off the pipe, the whole process must be reset.
jpl challenge rules
10/6/15
for our idea of testing the device is to set the machine in front of a paper target with a distance equivalent to that of the real target that will be at jpl.
the goal of the expirement is to look for reproductibilty. the device is to be fired 50 times, and after finding the batting average of the machine, we will record it and then move the machine to another spot at the same distance
and fire it another 50 times.
10/12/15
our bridge consisted of 7 bricks. we recieved a score of 2.4 which is pathetic compared to other bridges.
10/13/15
today Our now condensed JPL group is going to test the softball pitcher however we plan to have it bounce the ball into the target and see how accurate it is.
the process of testing will follow the same as before however this time we will simply be bouncing the ball in, instead of a direct shot. We will record the out come and distribute our results across all of the members websites.
href="docs/bounce test.pdf" border = 3 height = 400 width = 60 align = bottom bounce test results
10/14/15
Mr.Wilton will be coming to view our different designs, he will most likely be looking for consistency, accuracy and practicallity. The group with Mr.Miller has created a target for us to test at, that is similar to that of the target at JPL.
the only thing that worries me is that our machine might be to powerfull even at the LOWEST speed, And i dont want to damage the target and set us back more time for repairs.
10/27/2015
we have demonstrated that the old robot works quite succesfully, given the fact that it is using a different ball then it was originally intended. as of now we are building our device from scratch, and our only hang up as of now is deciding if we want to go with a 90V DC motor and a big wheel
or a 120V AC motor and small wheels. The final design however is going to closely mirror that of the actual pitching machine, the only change being that it will have a holding mechanism and a semi circle to guide the ball rather than a plate.
11/30/2015
The competition was stiff but we managed to do just well enough to get into the finals, we managed to get 50 points out of the possible 90. upon testing the device before the competition we learned that we could not hit the candle if the ball supplied was ever so slighty deflated. Either way we are in, now we have the probem of making
the device faster so we can it more accurate.
12/7/2015
The the final at JPL was a great success, we did very well however we got 4th place which is very good in retrospect, considering there was over 20 different teams. We recieved 70p, making it to the candle and the top hole of the 18.
we were having a bit of difficulty with the sight we were using to aim the device, the batteries were dying, making its function "iffy". i couldnt have been any prouder with our machine and team, both performed well under the given circumstance.
12/8/15
The wednesday challenge is to build a suspension bridge that can be placed inside either the lower, upper, hole of the 18 used for the JPL invention challenge or over the candle, also from the challenge.
our group thinks we should build the bridge through the bottom hole as points do not really matter and it all comes down to who can build the most accurate bridge to the design provided to us. We are going to be using cardboard and string to construct the bridge.
12/16/15
this is our failure, looks nothing like the intended design, materials were too scarce and one team member didn't even do anything
