On Wednesday night the group was to meet and put together our mechanized chipboard-and-acrylic model. We were going to use strings tied to the 3 outer triangles of each panel and attach them to a central string, which would tighten and loosen according to the rotation of the servo. We did all that, but it didn't really work.
I got there around 1 a.m., as I was scheduled to work 6-12 that night but was impeded by a group of 50 or so sorority rush candidates who all wanted frozen yogurt at once.
I immediately set to constructing the model, as Chris and Diana were focused on the Arduino side of things and Simon and Pat had to leave. We stuck around until about 4:30, at which point things looked pretty good. We had small rectangular pieces of acrylic connecting each outlying triangle to the central one to provide a counterforce that would allow the model to fold flat when we released the tension in the string, which would tighten to close the pyramid, and we had the servo in place and working correctly. Our problems arose from our inability to get the acrylic pieces to stay attached to the central triangle, as well as from our inability to keep the strings attached to the triangular panels. From a mechanical standpoint, it was a huge failure, and I was really angry.
We arrived in class and critted with the rest of class. This was the first critique I had participated in that focused on the intent rather than on the end product, which in this case was a relief. The class gave us a lot of good constructive criticism, and our failure that morning really motivated us to improve and refine our design and to organize more effectively. We spent the afternoon working with arduino, which was excellent, as it provided us with a concrete way to work on the project. In the half hour we spent working on it, Chris and I managed to activate the servo based on input from the motion sensor. Hard-wire logic! Ma-chine language!
We definitely have our work cut out for us in the coming week, and we look forward to improving on our performance of this week.
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