Fall 2022 24-101 Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering

Made in partnership with Kai Herchenroether and Geronimo Carom

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To learn about the process of designing electro-mechanical systems for a purpose, we were tasked with making a C++ code for a pre-built mobot that used a servo and an infrared sensor to follow a line, connect to a magnetic train car, and follow a wall until it ends as efficiently as possible. 

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While this task seemed simple initially, we found there were many ways to stop the mobot from following the line efficiently by altering its tolerances for when to back and by how much when running off the line. However, by rigorously altering and testing, we were able to find a great level of tolerances that resulted in the mobot completing the course in an efficient time.

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As part of learning about designing systems for a purpose, we designed and constructed a truss that would fail when exactly 45 pounds of weight were applied to it. 

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To start, we made a design that would distribute the force to a single beam of the truss thus allowing for a more accurate breakthrough force and moment analysis. We then found the necessary width of the truss beams for the truss to fail at this weight and used a laser cutter to cut out the pieces from acrylic. After testing a few times, we found that the laser cutter was not accurately cutting the beams to the necessary width and thus failed far too soon. By periodically increasing the widths of the design and comparing them with the measured printed design, we were able to figure out the laser-cutting machine's design-to-cutting ratio. After increasing the width of our truss beam's design by the amount the laser cutter was decreasing it, we constructed our truss as designed which failed at exactly 45 pounds of force applied.