Notes on Rapid Prototyping projects and activities
January
What I learned from this was that it's often more fun to take certain kinds
of toys apart than it is to play with them. I don't remember having a lot
of wind-up toys when I was a kid; most of what I had couldn't really be
taken apart in any interesting way, like blocks and marbles. It was hard
to reassemble things in useful ways because the parts were often too
specialized, except for the gear boxes. Often things didn't stay together
well, even if they looked interesting.
Project 1: toy concepts
I thought of this because I vaguely remember playing with the turntable of
a record player. I think it was fun, but could be improved. First, some
parents may not be too happy about their kids dropping stuff on their
record player. Second, it might be more fun if the turntable were bigger.
Third, it might be more educational if kids had to, in some way, power it
themselves. Fourth, not that many people might have record players any
more.
At first I thought of making it wind up like the little plastic toys we
disassembled in class, but then decided the spring mechanism probably
wouldn't scale up to work for the size I wanted. Something like the
lazy-Susans used in some Chinese restaurants probably would, though,
because they're about the right size and can take a good deal of weight.
The turntable would then just be pushed to get it to rotate.
I think I saw the tiling somewhere a very long time ago, and then again as
one of the After Dark screensavers. I thought it would have been cool if
tile companies would make the tiles so people could tile their floors with
them (although admittedly it would be harder than with normal, repeating
tiles). Also, when my cousin was about 4 she put all her books on the
floor and used them as "tile". I just combined the two ideas. The
magnetic version is probably the more interesting one, but would have to
be smaller.
This is related to those clear plastic balls with the small colored ones
inside. It seemed that it would be more interesting if there were more
levels of nesting, because then how the stuff inside would move would be
less straightforward. Also, it would be nice to be able to assemble the
thing yourself.
Summary
The turntable I see as giving people a chance to play with something that
ordinarily is manufactured as something other than a toy, without getting
in trouble. Not everything is a toy, after all. :) The Penrose tiles
were something I got to see but not play with hands-on. The spheres are
an improvement on a toy that does exist but is somewhat disappointing.
February
Things I learned from this:
- Paper fatigues very easily.
- Perhaps English is not such a good language for specifications.
(Then again, I'm learning this in my programming class; might be
biased.) Also, without a ruler, people don't have the same idea of
what "1 inch" is.
- Having a lot of diagrams is a Good Thing, even more so than I
thought.
I think the group worked together well, except that we ran out of time and
maybe should have done some more prototyping than we did. On the other
hand, that would have fatigued the newspaper more. Since we used a fair
amount, that might have become a problem.
IronCAD lab
Not having used anything else (i.e., AutoCAD), I can't make a comparison.
Still, it seems to be nice to do things in 3D and not have to build them
out of cardboard, because changes don't have to be permanent. Also, if
you mess up or stop paying attention it doesn't tend to
cause personal injury.
At first I considered designing something involving a hat. However, the
only hat I had had flowers on it, and I thought it would not be something
Role Mole would reasonably want to wear on a date. I didn't consider
folding glasses because I thought I had to assume that Role Mole had
glasses that were as uncooperative as the next person's. In the end, I
collected a bunch of materials that I had in my room, put them on my desk,
looked at them, and thought about how I might be able to assemble them
into something. (Now that I think about it, this is not unlike the way I
write shell scripts, where the smaller programs are the materials.) The
bobby pins were the main inspiration. I thought I'd have to use something
like duct tape to attach them to the ribbon, but as it turned out I had a
needle and some very fine copper wire, and fortunately the grosgrain rib
kept the pins from sliding around. Not knowing what sort of glasses or
case Role Mole had, I provided a couple of extra pins and also
demonstrated that it was possible to attach certain types of case securely
to the ribbon just by closing the case around the ribbon. With the extra
pins, other things could be attached as well.
Project 2
This would have been tedious except that I got to work with someone else
(Shalyn). I think we worked together pretty well and finished the cube
faster that way. It was easy to decide how to arrange the sides and make
up for slight mistakes. (Actually, right, there were no mistakes... Heh.)
March
I started out wanting to arrange the cans in some interesting way, instead
of in the usual rectangle. This became an additional constraint. First, I
thought about arranging the cans in a triangle. The disadvantage to this
was that the sides of the triangle were relatively long, which meant they'd
take a lot of cardboard and probably reduce the stability. Then I thought
about arranging them in a hexagon. This would take 7 cans, but one could
be left out and the space could be used for a handle. I started
constructing the box without really thinking about how the handle would
work, and decided to add two more sets of tabs to attach the sides
together. Then I folded back the middle section and cut out the holes for
the handles, which don't look as good because I was starting to get tired
of cutting stuff. The top two tabs don't stay in very well because I used
an inferior part of the box, since I was running out of cardboard.
Fortunately, this isn't the most important part of the box in terms of
structural integrity; it just looks dangerous. Also, I obviously wasn't
worrying too much about the amount of cardboard this involved, so it turned
out to be somewhat excessive. The cardboard was strong enough that I could
have cut out lots of holes without the box falling apart. However, I got
sick of cutting things out (and myself, eventually), and didn't want to
risk having to find more cardboard and start over. This is a feature in a
way, because being completely enclosed, the cans might stay cold longer.
Project 3
Strategically, we probably should have been much less concerned with
hitting the target and concentrated on not letting the egg break, since
that was worth a lot more points. It looks like section C (the last
section) used a lot of parachutes. I don't know how well that worked,
but it might have helped. The main problem we had was that the cone fell
sideways because there wasn't enough weight at the point. We could have
stuffed some clay in it or hung something off the end so that it would
fall straight. If that worked and the egg didn't bounce, the cone should
have fallen on the point, which it seems would have used a lot of the force
to try to compress. Instead, the cone fell on its side, which defeated the
purpose.
April
outreach activities
Design/build take 2
This was fun. The design wasn't much
different from the group's design
for the first design/build activity.
Paper weights worked to hold the
streamers in place. The base was taped to newspaper, and since the feet
stayed properly splayed out it wasn't necessary to have them taped to the
floor.
We originally built the other group's structure upside down, because
otherwise we thought it would be too weak. Unfortunately this didn't
count as enclosing the group, so we
added some paper strips (and Jesus
handles, heh) to the top. These were supposed to be a feature.
Flipping the structure over did
actually work, but not permanently.
May
Project 3
The prototype for this, in the end, turned out better than I was beginning
to suspect it would. It seems like we worked most effectively when the
prototype urgently needed existence or improvement. Eventually we had a
plexiglass tunnel with an air-straightener and a relatively strong
connection between the fan and the tunnel. Things might have worked
better if we'd had the right size/shape/strength fan. Also, the better
wind tunnels all funnel the air from the fan into the (smaller) tunnel.
We didn't do this because we didn't find appropriate materials for it
with the time/money we had. Still, it was surprising how fast we could do
things when necessary.
Margaret I DeLap
Last modified: Thu May 11 22:26:54 EDT 2000
