You and your group must create a marble track that moves the marble at least one foot. The design can use any materials in the CCI or Su Explo Center. Your design must also have at least one moving part using mechanical engineering. 

After completing your work, please photograph your track with a GIF of the moving parts. It should be posted in the response tab with a 3-5 sentence reflection of the process. 

You will be assessed on: 

- Creativity 

- Aesthetics 

- Mechanical Engineering 

In our design, Mason and I made a marble track with a see-saw mechanism that would drop the marble onto the track, eventually leading to a cup at the bottom. Something that went well for our group was persevering through our struggles. We went back and forth between a see-saw, swing, and wheel, and then used the see-saw idea. Our see-saw didn't initially work, however we managed to make it functional by the time we had to present. Something that didn't go as well was the speed control of the marble going down the track. Our initial ramp wasn't slanted enough so the marble had a tough time making its way down the track and would often get stuck. This happened multiple times in our presentation. Something we could have done better in the future would be not thinking as much about the see-saw and making it simpler so that we had more time to make the functionality of the rest of the track better. In conclusion, I believe that this project helped me better understand time management within a limited time frame and I am excited to work on the major upcoming project.

For our marble track, Jack and I designed a four-ramp track that descended into a cup, triggering a pulley mechanism to transfer the marble to another cup. However, during our allotted trials, the marble either fell off the ramp before it reached the cup or missed the cup entirely. In hindsight, we could utilize our time more effectively to ensure the track functioned properly before we had to present it in front of the class. To improve functionality, we would have added a wall behind the initial cup to prevent the marble from avoiding it and implemented speed bumps along the ramps to reduce the marble's momentum and keep it on the track. Overall, I think we had a good idea, but failing to complete this task opened my eyes to areas for growth, which will be helpful to keep in mind as we tackle the major project. 

OctoArm A limb inspired by the way an octopus uses its tentacles to complete tasks, from walking on the ocean floor, to propelling itself through the water like a torpedo.

We made a prototype of an octopus tentacle out of cardboard and a series of joints. We decided to use different types of joints because we knew that would be the easiest way to make it move. We are exploring ways to increase the force that is exerted when the tentacle wraps around an object. We were resolving the problem we had with the sturdiness of the entire tentacle, we did this by taping popsicle sticks to the back of the tentacle to help support it. The characteristics we will keep include: the hooking motion, and using hot glue as a grip. We will have the same concepts, but different design. We will try to change the way it moves, we are thinking about using a rotating wheel type mechanism because the motion of the tentacle will no longer rely on the person pulling the string. For our next prototype, we will make sure to improve it in the best and most efficient ways possible. 

We had to create an abstraction of the Aurora Borealis, so we abstracted the colors and the movement to create an installation that responds to the movement of a person the way atoms in Earth's atmosphere respond to charged particles from the sun, creating the Aurora Borealis. 
We decided to create translucent boxes out of acrylic and put LED lights in them. The acrylic and the position of the LEDs diffused the light in a very beautiful way that was similar to the glow of the real Northern Lights. We wanted the boxes to move in a wavy motion like the Northern lights do, so we used a Servo to move a line of the boxes. 
 

The reason for our project was to create an abstraction that moves and had the same colors as the Northern Lights. We did this by using a Servo, acrylic boxes, and LED's to recreate the movement and the colors of the Aurora Borealis. In our project, we had a long wooden board that held up the boxes. On one end it had a screw, and on the other it had a Servo. The Servo was connected to one box, and it would move that box back and forth, therefore also moving all the boxes back and forth. At the same end as the Servo was the power strip and the LED's. The LED's went through all the boxes on the top, creating light that cast downward on the the person standing underneath. Also at the end with the Servo was a Ultrasonic sensor. The sensor would sense whenever a person went underneath our project, and would light up and and move only when triggered. At the beginning of our project, we didn't think hinges were necessary, but we later decided to use them. We created many cardboard boxes; some vertical, some horizontal; some with holes for LED's, some without; some with room to move the boxes ninety degrees, some without. It was a very long process, but because of our many iterations, our project came out well. There were some challenges, however. One, was that because we had been using cardboard the whole time, we did not account for how heavy the acrylic was going to be. The Servo had a hard time moving the boxes, and therefore our project had more of a stuttering motion, instead of a wavy one. A second challenge was that the soldering on our LED's was not good at all, so we ended up having to use just a strip of uninterrupted LED's, and cover up the lights that were showing.

For this iteration, instead of having just cardboard thinly cut in places, we created our first set of boxes. We used boxdesigner.com to make vertical boxes using notching. We attached the boxes using screws. We would put the lights down the sides of the boxes. We ended up not using this version for a few different reasons. One was that the motion was very limited, and it was not able to move in the wavy motion. Another, was that we decided the lights would look more realistic coming from the top, rather than the side. It would have more of a glow effect and be more representative of the Northern Lights. We changed a lot of features for the next iteration.

This iteration is one step before our final cut. We made the boxes horizontal and planned to have the lights coming from the top. There were still a few technical changes that we needed after this iteration, though. We had to alter the Rhino sketch to accommodate space for the top and bottom pieces so they didn't stick up as they do in this picture. We also made them more visually appealing by making end pieces and we added screw holes for the servo. The only other thing we changed from this version for the final was changing the box dimensions from cardboard width to acrylic width.