Blog Entry 6

Hello guys!!!! Welcome back to another blog!!! Well, in this blog , there are going to be a lot of interesting things as my group members and I indulged in a lot of interesting and unique experiences.

The first experience included designing a shooting and loading mechanism for a ping pong shooter and the second experience included practical 4, which consisted of coming up with a marble run machines out of cardboard. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys probably think that this is extremely easy, but hey, after I share my experience, I guarantee that you guys will definitely change your mind. 

Did not mean to scare you guys, it was fun to do the activities though😊😊😊😊

Okay, okay , here is my experience of designing a shooting and loading mechanism for a ping pong shooter.

Shooting and Loading Mechanism for ping pong shooter

Before starting with the designing, we learned about the 6 essential mechanisms in functional prototypes.

These 6 include the actuators, the cams, the gears, the levers, the rachets and the springs. 

We had tons of ideas at first as there were wide range of designs that are possible. Firstly, my group members thought of the usage of springs. However, we felt that the ping pong launcher might not be successful if the spring is to fail or get spoilt. After some serious discussions , my group decided to use a mechanism such as an actuator .

We came up with the design of the ping pong shooter

Sketch of the ping pong shooter

Working mechanism of the ping pong ball launcher

When the handle is pulled backwards, air enters the ping pong ball launcher and is accumulated by the ping pong ball launcher. The check valve, which is located at the entrance of the launcher and bottom of the handle allows the air to only exit from the outlet. Accumulated air will come out from the outlet of the launcher due to the check valve. When the handle is pushed forward, the accumulated air in the gun exerts air pressure on the ping pong ball, causing the ball to be propelled forward. For the loading of the ping pong balls, there is a compartment which holds the ping pong balls. Both the compartments are separated by two rubber pieces. When there is a need to reload the balls, push the ball downwards until one ball falls through the rubber pieces. 

And Yeah!!!!!!! This is our gun!!!! We felt like a nerf gun creator!!! Well, if we were nerf gun creators, won't you guys want to buy this ping pong ball launcher?????

Get ready for the next adventure as I move on to talk about practical 4!!!

Practical 4

Well, this practical was also another practical which was tremendously tiring and awesome as there was a lot of feelings and emotions which came along with the different sections of doing this practical. 

When we were first briefed about this practical, we were shell shocked as we had never done anything like this before. Moreover, we had limitations such as making the cardboard models only with cardboard and the dimension of the cardboard model, which is 100cm by 100cm by 100cm. For inspiration, my group members and I searched Youtube, watching several videos of cardboard models. Some of the cardboard models in the videos were too difficult to make , as it had a lot of cardboard joineries and working mechanisms, while the others were bigger than the dimensions of 100cm by 100cm by 100cm. Others cardboard models had other materials used other than cardboard. Therefore, we had to plan a lot to come up with the models. 

Layout of cardboard model

Here is a picture of the layout of the cardboard model. 

Specifications of cardboard needed for different parts of cardboard model

For the pathway alone, we needed:

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 45cm by 3cm 

- 9 pieces of cardboard pieces of 15cm by 3cm 

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 10.5cm by 3cm 

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 25cm by 3cm

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 20cm by 3cm

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 10cm by 3cm

For the pillars to support the pathway, we needed:

T-shaped cardboards:

- 2 pieces of a = 18cm, b = 10cm, c = 4cm, d = 2cm , e = 2cm

- 2 pieces of a = 15cm, b = 10cm, c = 4cm, d = 2cm , e = 2cm

- 2 pieces of a = 10cm, b = 10cm, c = 4cm, d = 2cm , e = 2cm

- 2 pieces of a = 5cm, b = 10cm, c = 4cm, d = 2cm , e = 2cm

For the mechanism of the cardboard model, we needed:

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 18cm by 3cm 

- 3 pieces of cardboard pieces of 1.5cm by 3cm 

- 1 piece of wooden stick

- 4 pieces of T-shaped cardboard where a = 15cm, b = 10cm, c = 4cm, d = 2cm , e = 2cm

Making of the cardboard model

The making process had a lot of ups and downs. We had already cut out most of the cardboard before attending the practical session.

Here are pictures of me measuring and drawing on the cardboard.

We thought the practical session was going to be a breeze as we already had finished the difficult part of the practical, which was to prepare the cardboard pieces. Well, we were wrong as we had faced a lot more difficulties and challenges.

Firstly, we realised that we needed more pieces than we had actually had, which caused us to cut more cardboard pieces during the practical. This caused us to use up a lot of time. Moreover, there were times when I had made mistakes in the cutting of the cardboard piece, which made me restart the cutting and measurement process. We started using the glue gun to gluie to the cardboard to each other. Some time later, we had run out of glue sticks , causing us to use tape to tape the cardboards. Taping the pathway to the pillars of the pathway and taping the base of the pillars of the pathway to the bottom of the cardboard was not as easy task. We required a lot of tape to ensure that the pillars and the pathway were secure to each other. It also had to withstand the weight of the marble without falling off easily. There were times when the tape was not secured to the base of the cardboard, causing us to restart the process of taping. The working mechanism was a cam which lifts the marble with a lever. My group members and I were indulged in making the cam and the lever to operate the working mechanism, causing us to not pay attention to the running time. After 2 hours had passed, we only had finished taping the cardboard pieces to each other and taping the cardboard pieces to the cardboard base. However, we had not finished making the lever finished. We were only 80% done with the lever. However, the time was already up. Therefore, we had to remove the unfinished lever and manually operate the cam. Our hardwork was wasted a little, but this taught me an important lesson. I would have to learn to work faster for other practicals, as well as to plan before hand some materials needed , to ensure more thorough and smooth work, with lesser mistakes. 

Video of the cardboard making process

Here is a time-lapse of us making the lever for the working mechanism and the pasting of the cardboard pieces together.

Here is another time-lapse of us constructing the cardboard model.

Video of the product in operation 

I hope you guys love my groups' design. It was a lot of hardwork put in by my group members and me😌😌😌