Assignment 2 Reflection
Personally, I learned the most when we were constructing the car. I now have a better understanding of joints and material tolerances after going through several iterations of the car. One thing that we struggled with is having inconsistent dimensions of material. For example, the steel rods that we used for the axles were inconsistent by fractions of an inch. These inaccuracies were not visible to the naked eye but were apparent when we were testing the dry fit spacers. Even though the holes in the spacers were all the same, some were too loose on the axles and others were too tight. To combat this issue, we laser cut more spacers than we needed so that we could keep testing until we found a spacer that fit well on the steel bar.Â
I think that if the grasshopper script was introduced earlier in the assignment, we would have been able to use that to generate the gear trains. Because it was introduced later in the assignment, we had already designed the gear trains and the entire body surrounding those gears. By showing it in the beginning alongside the mathematics behind gear ratios, we would have been able to begin construction sooner.Â
Reflecting from what was discussed in the review, I agree with Marc in that the design of the body should have been iterated more. It was something that was not focused on because our biggest priority was making the car move. The two requirements of the assignment were to make it move and to make it sturdy. We achieved both of these requirements! However, the design of the car suffered because of this. I think that if we reduced a majority of the layers to just be outlines of the car’s body (rather than whole pieces) it would greatly reduce the weight of the car and increase the transparency of the body. Â
Final Result!!:
It was extremely rewarding the first time it moved those 10 inches after all of those hours testing and breaking things to rebuild them again. It definitely made me appreciate the mechanisms that do work. If we were to build this car once more, we would definitely be able to make it move the required 2 feet. To do that, we would drastically reduce the weight of the car and increase the size of the torsion spring. That way, the torsion spring to weight ratio would increase. Then the torsion spring would produce enough torque to propel the car forward and engage the second gear train.
