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.
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