Reflection
I liked that my project worked in the end. My groups hard work payed off in the end, and we eventually reached our goal of creating a functional, working drawing mechanism. It also looked presentable, and made an interesting looking pattern.
I chose this project since the initial video we were show of a similar project looked very interesting. The concept of creating a drawing apparatus that could illustrate patterns controlled by different variables interested me. Initially, I thought, “What if we could create an apparatus that can illustrate mathematical equations?” The concept of that interested me, and I wanted to try imitating the apparatus in the video.
I was proud to show that our project actually worked. When we spun the handle, the arms would move, causing the mechanism to draw an interesting pattern on the paper. I was proud of this because it working showed all of the hard work I put into the project, and also I thought people would find this interesting.
Specifically, Ty and I literally worked on everything together. We both would sit down and work on laser cutter files together, we would sand parts down together, we would glue things down together--everything. This meant that the project’s work was evenly distributed, and everyone got to learn and work on every aspect of the project. Conclusively, I specifically worked on designing laser cutter files, helping print them, gluing parts down, sanding parts down, testing to see if our project worked, and presenting our project at exhibition.
Eventually, the glue wore and came undone on one of the dowels, so the disk that one of the arms was attached to started to spin slower than the other one, drawing a different pattern. All of the use it was getting eventually lead to the glue giving, so that part of the project worked worse than it should have. Also, I think if we made two layers of our gears, the project would have worked more smoothly. What did work though, was the arms. The length of the arms was perfect, and they would sufficiently hold a pen in place to draw the pattern.
What could be better is if someone created a version where the operator could move the position of the arms on the disk. This would make the mechanism able to draw different patterns. I was thinking that this could be done if the disks were made of something metal, and instead of using pegs to hold down the arms, someone could put high powered magnets in the arms, so that you could place them on the discs in different positions, but the arms also would also stay sturdy.
I think our project was successful because I learned lots of skills, like adobe illustrator, from it, and it worked. I thought that when we got our project working, it could immediately could be deemed successful, since we met all of our goals. The biggest lessons that I learned are to use super glue instead of hot glue, then to make gears twice as thick as the laser cutter material to make things move smoother.
If I could change my project, I would make it possible to reposition our arms. I would do this the same way I spoke about earlier-- by using magnets. If I could change something about this class, I would just make there be more time to complete this project. I feel like if we had one more week to work on our projects, everyones final would end up twice as good as they did.
I would keep team selection open. I prefer to choose my own partner so that I can get a partner who will actually contribute to the project. For other classes, we were assigned our own partners for projects, and I ended up doing literally all of the work. With this project, I got to pick my own partner who would contribute equally, making less stress on me, and a better end result.
I do have one burning question about my project. My question is if there is an universal equation that you can use to graph the pattern that the apparatus will draw. It would have to account for all of the factors that influence the graph, and also how long the apparatus is drawing the graph. I feel like there probably isn’t a universal equation for this, but I am curious if it is possible to make one.
My suggestion for this class is to schedule more time for laser cutting. At one point, people were flustering to get things cut, and it was tough helping to get everything cut. I’m sure this happens every year, but I would just suggest that maybe there should be a signup sheet for laser cutting, and maybe schedule more time. Otherwise, everything else worked fine throughout the process of completing the project.
I chose this project since the initial video we were show of a similar project looked very interesting. The concept of creating a drawing apparatus that could illustrate patterns controlled by different variables interested me. Initially, I thought, “What if we could create an apparatus that can illustrate mathematical equations?” The concept of that interested me, and I wanted to try imitating the apparatus in the video.
I was proud to show that our project actually worked. When we spun the handle, the arms would move, causing the mechanism to draw an interesting pattern on the paper. I was proud of this because it working showed all of the hard work I put into the project, and also I thought people would find this interesting.
Specifically, Ty and I literally worked on everything together. We both would sit down and work on laser cutter files together, we would sand parts down together, we would glue things down together--everything. This meant that the project’s work was evenly distributed, and everyone got to learn and work on every aspect of the project. Conclusively, I specifically worked on designing laser cutter files, helping print them, gluing parts down, sanding parts down, testing to see if our project worked, and presenting our project at exhibition.
Eventually, the glue wore and came undone on one of the dowels, so the disk that one of the arms was attached to started to spin slower than the other one, drawing a different pattern. All of the use it was getting eventually lead to the glue giving, so that part of the project worked worse than it should have. Also, I think if we made two layers of our gears, the project would have worked more smoothly. What did work though, was the arms. The length of the arms was perfect, and they would sufficiently hold a pen in place to draw the pattern.
What could be better is if someone created a version where the operator could move the position of the arms on the disk. This would make the mechanism able to draw different patterns. I was thinking that this could be done if the disks were made of something metal, and instead of using pegs to hold down the arms, someone could put high powered magnets in the arms, so that you could place them on the discs in different positions, but the arms also would also stay sturdy.
I think our project was successful because I learned lots of skills, like adobe illustrator, from it, and it worked. I thought that when we got our project working, it could immediately could be deemed successful, since we met all of our goals. The biggest lessons that I learned are to use super glue instead of hot glue, then to make gears twice as thick as the laser cutter material to make things move smoother.
If I could change my project, I would make it possible to reposition our arms. I would do this the same way I spoke about earlier-- by using magnets. If I could change something about this class, I would just make there be more time to complete this project. I feel like if we had one more week to work on our projects, everyones final would end up twice as good as they did.
I would keep team selection open. I prefer to choose my own partner so that I can get a partner who will actually contribute to the project. For other classes, we were assigned our own partners for projects, and I ended up doing literally all of the work. With this project, I got to pick my own partner who would contribute equally, making less stress on me, and a better end result.
I do have one burning question about my project. My question is if there is an universal equation that you can use to graph the pattern that the apparatus will draw. It would have to account for all of the factors that influence the graph, and also how long the apparatus is drawing the graph. I feel like there probably isn’t a universal equation for this, but I am curious if it is possible to make one.
My suggestion for this class is to schedule more time for laser cutting. At one point, people were flustering to get things cut, and it was tough helping to get everything cut. I’m sure this happens every year, but I would just suggest that maybe there should be a signup sheet for laser cutting, and maybe schedule more time. Otherwise, everything else worked fine throughout the process of completing the project.