Week 10

 Initial Manufacturing

This week marked the beginning of producing our first prototype, and gaining a batter understanding of what the final product should be for this semester with our available resources.

Display Code Demo (Elijah)

• There are two sides of the code thus far in the project, display and motor control. In the meantime while motors arrive, work on understanding the display code was done.
• The library chosen for the display was SFML, a cross platform graphics and audio library compatible with C++. 
• The desired demo was designed to show how the code can produce an animation on screen while simultaneously listening for user input (mouse click), thus giving credence that the final program can display the handle position and listen for motor updates. 
• Beginnings of the demo were mostly learning details of C++ like h files, pointers, and classes, with the first output being very simple and static.

• After research of the documentation, testing, and development, the final demo for this week was completed, resulting in the video below.

• The diamond is able to move on a set track and detect if it is clicked on at the same time, changing to red if clicked, and back to green if the user clicks somewhere else.

Mounting System Analysis (Gavin)

• A continuation of the mounting system analysis was conducted after receiving confirmation from our client, Dr. Kim, that such a  standalone system is desired.
• Initial calculations such as the center of mass and bending of the structure were considered, producing a preliminary design early on in the week.

• FEA was carried out different configurations in order to determine the design with the least bending and most suitable factor of safety.

• After these analyses, a final configuration was obtained, with the motors being placed as shown.

• The final detail of the configuration was the thickness of the steel tubing, in which the higher factor of safety option was chosen as the cost difference was not extreme. The materials for the mounting system have been ordered via the Capstone Form.

Linkage Arm Joint Design/Printing (Sean)

• During this week, a more defined final design for this semester's prototype was obtained as we will end with a single motor, thus not being the same as our projected final product.
• This fall semester design introduced a manual system for the second motor's angle to be set, via handles on the joints of the linkages. 
• The linkage joints were then redesigned to accommodate for this, and a dedicated handle for the moving of the linkages was constructed as well.

Handle Design (Nathan)

• Work on the handle is being continued, though as Nathan was recovering from Covid this previous week, there are no photos of Solidworks models for this week.
• The main focus for this semester is to have a physical and functional handle for our semester end prototype, with a more straightforward design and possible forearm support.

Material Ordering (All)

• In addition to the design work, the bulk of the materials were order this week such as the motor and motor infrastructure, linkage material, and the previously mentioned mount material (with some material already arriving this week).

Ethics Discussion (All)

•  Another substantial portion of the team's work was on their individual ethics presentations or paper, in which the slides will be presented tomorrow. 
• Peer reviews within the team were also conducted.