Week three was centered around prototyping, much like week two. To begin, we had two main indexing prototypes. One was shaped like a C, dubbed the reverse scorpion. Balls travel along a belt before being brought to a shooter. In the photo, our single flywheel shooter is pictured.
The second indexing design was a rotating magazine of game pieces. Students were inspired by videos from other teams, one of which this prototype was directly inspired by. A rotating base brings balls to a spinning wheel in order to get the balls to eject into the shooter.
By the end of the week, our DVC (Design Voting Council) decided on furthering the rotating indexing mechanism rather than the C indexer. The reasoning behind this was the issue with height. Since we had already decided on a shorter robot, the C indexer posed a disadvantage in regards to height, even though both designs were comparable in their vertical footprints. Students thought that the rotating indexer could be more easily shortened, while shortening the C indexer would affect the compression of the balls. The C indexer prototype was also shown to struggle with manipulating five balls, while the rotating indexer did not have the same issue.
The laser cutter is still at work! Since we are in the process of mounting our single flywheel shooter on the rotating indexer for further testing, students have been using the laser cutter to get all of our parts done precisely.
Former Communications Lead, Stats @ CMU