Morning of MS8

Here's a video of Team I'm On Top on the morning of MS8. After an all-nighter in the dude, team members share their perspectives on the past few days working on MS8...

Beginning Stages of the MCM

The MCM began to take form last week as we prepared to show it off for our MS8. Lots of hours were spent in the Machine Shop and Dude preparing for the engineering drawings, bill of materials, processes list, and finally the completed MCM. It was great to see our CAD drawings come to life! The first picture depicts the side plates with the top storage rack. Screws and two clamps were used in order to keep the frame together. The next step was the most nerve-racking as it involved the gears, and to our delight, the gear train fitted precisely like our solid model.
As you can see in the picture, there are three gears in the gear train. Spring pins were used to secure the gears to the axles. These gears are used to convert the rotational energy of the motor into the rotational energy of the flipper. It was great to see how rotate one gear, and see that all moved in unison. A gear plate, made out of aluminum was engineered to protect the gears, since the gears are very sensitive, and prone to rough play from opponents. At first 1/4" Acrylic was to be used, but an incident involving the waterjet lead us to choose the 1/4" aluminum plate. The pros to the aluminum was that it was a stronger material (ie it didn't break when we water-jetted it, like the acrylic plate), but the con was that it was much heavier. One thing that we were able to observe from this model was the weight. We were very surprised to see how "heavy" it was, and were able to compare the estimated weight given by the solid model to the actual weight. It is important to note that the weight was only going to get larger as more parts are added to the assembly.

Update/ Monday work

Things were looking pretty good this past Wednesday. We had the flipper module assembled and working. It was able to hit balls, but we were having issues timing the spinning of the flipper. To resolve this we have two options. Decrease the rotational speed which may cause the balls not to have enough speed to make it up the ramp, or increase the speed, and have the operator turn on the flipper every time a ball is at the bottom of the ramp.

Here's a optimistic schedule of what we could accomplish Monday the 29th.

Mon 29
-Waterjet
 -cut side plates and ball hitter arm out
-Lathe
 -hex shaft sleeves for double gearbox
 -tensioner bolts  *least important on this day
-Mill
 -ream holes in side plate for motor ball bearings
 - use end mill for tensioner slots
 -create second double gearbox pillow block(Nate already made one)
 -mill 20deg angle into side plate mounts *only if we have extra time on
mill
    -mill slot in angle for ramp velcro(note, measure velcro thickness
first)
 -use mill to drill mounting holes in left side support for the ball
hitter arm
    *note only if we have extra time left
-Drill Press
  -drill holes for track wheels in side plates
  -measure planetary gearbox longer and shorter segments, drill 4 holes in delrin plate
-Other
 -think of solution for mounting casters(drill holes larger in acrylic?)
 -assemble and test double gearbox with machine motion.
 -have bob knurl top flipper drive shaft, so we don't have slipage

ball hitting action

I created the ball hitting arm required by our machine. Its a bit longer now then it used to be now that we aren't driving on the ball holder.

"Spent the weekend in the dood 'cause we gotta be frosty on Wednesday, but you know we're still keepin' it real."

A team member searching for inspiration, and a personal message to Sei.  Below is some fun mill action for the MCM.

The Slot Jammer

Here are completed images of the CAD for our defensive module, the Slot Jammer.

Here is the Jammer in its starting position on the table.

Here is the Jammer after it has fallen and jammed the flipper. Simultaneously, the kickbar swings out in order to knock balls into the slot, as seen in the picture.

First parts completed

















Water Jet Cutting






Double Gearbox Construction


















Double Gearbox In Action

Laser cutting of the flipper plate is complete!  Even though the chassis width is smaller, the flipper module can still accommodate 2 squash balls side-by-side.

 Tracks came in!  Sicknasty and also trick maneuvers will ensue.



With a 6.5'' dimension for outer width between tracks, the whole vehicle is really narrowed down.

Flipper Drivetrain

Here's the flipper drive train. I left 16 thousands of space on each side of the gears for slop, so at max slop, 75 percent of the gears will still touch. We may have to increase this space due to the uncertainty in the width of the kit materials.

Do we want E clips on the upper 2 shafts?

MS6: MCM Module - The Flipper!

Here's the information for MS6. Our most critical module is the flipper

Bill of Materials: http://goo.gl/W5mS