Progress as of Today
Between December 11 and February 3, we made significant progress on our project milestones. We successfully completed Milestone 1, focusing on the initial design of our deployment mechanism. Following that, Milestone 2 saw the completion of our first physical prototype. Currently, we are nearing completion of Milestone 3, which involves testing the 3D printed mechanism.
FEA
During this phase, we conducted various tasks, including running necessary analyses to determine the device's ability to withstand applied forces. We utilized COMSOL for simulations and made design modifications based on the outcomes. Originally, we applied a static load, but after a meeting with our professor, we recognized the need for dynamic testing, considering the device's impact on slowing down movement. As you can see below the FEA done on our device when applying a dynamic force works perfectly.
3D Printing
As part of our ongoing progress, we took a crucial step by 3D printing our device. This allowed us to assess the functionality of our mechanism and verify whether the dimensions align perfectly with the Whippet, for which our device is designed. Simultaneously, we have been procuring various parts and materials required for our final prototype. For instance, we obtained the necessary spring and tested its compatibility within our 3D printed device.
The results have been promising – the Whippet fits seamlessly as you can down below, and the spring has sufficient force to open the axe.
When 3D printing the deployment mechanism, it was a lot easier to see errors in our design, for instance the button mechanism had to be redesigned because the locking mechanism that we had initially designed was not working as we hoped. We found that the best one movement deployment is a small lever that deploys the axe quickly and were able to redesign the locking mechanism which worked great with our design and even was ergonomically easier to use for skiers. As you can see down below the full designed mechanism works and locks properly.
Welding
We started talking to our welder, and discussed how exactly he would weld our device using the 3D printed device as an example. He discussed different options, so we know how the welding will affect our final design and how the welding will react to forces being applied to our device. He let us know that he would weld diagonally the frame's 3 plates from the outside and as for the connector he would weld the 4 corners.
TEAM PLAN
By February 17 we will have Milestone 3 completed which is the first prototype deployment mechanism tested. This Milestone includes having a working one step movement that opens the axe and will lock in place for the user to use. This will be made out 3D printed filament. During this time, we would have the material needed to start creating our device and should have had started the conversation with the machinist to bring our device to life. Even though for the most part this is completed we are still making minor changes. For the most we are focusing on starting to create our final prototype.
Obstacles
Obstacles we foresee in the future is the amount of time we would have our completed parts done since we will need the machinist to work on our project and we know that he might take a while since he has other projects to work on. According to our schedule we have about a couple of weeks to spare which we allowed for situations like this.
Another obstacle we might foresee is the shipping time on our material. We know that the shipping time given from the provider is just an estimate so we are aware that it might elongate the process. Time could be a major constraint, but we do have plan b if the material takes too long, we will pay somewhere else that ships material faster since we have the space in the budget.
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