Machine Control: Capstone Project

Brainstorming Ideas: Our group went through a few design ideas until we came upon the one we ended up using for our final design. We started with a kind of rail design in which the marbles traveled down a series of rails with the sensors positioned on the sides, and the marbles would trigger a sensor and fall off the rail to the corresponding spot. Then we had a sliding sensor mechanism, where the marbles would travel onto a sliding sensor that would put them into the corresponding tracks, this idea was what helped spawn our final design. After this design we replaced the large slider with a system that would seperate the marbles based off the size and we still used the smaller slider to seperate the glass marbles, this was our last brainstorming idea before we came up with our final design.

Decision Matrix:

Final Design: In our design the marbles go down the nitial track where a double gate system allows only one marble to go through at a time. The marbles then pass an opening where The smalle marbles (wood and metal) will go through and large marbles (glass) will go past. The small marbles pass through a magnet where wood marbles just pass through to their bin but the metal ones are caught by the magnet and are then pushed off into their bin. The glass marbles go down the track to a light sensor area which triggers a rotating path that guides them to their corresponding bins.

Design Modifications: We had to take out the initial gate system that only allowed one marble to go through at a time because it all of sudden stopped working and we couldn't figure out why so we had to take it out because we did not have the time to figure out the prblem and fix it.

Reflection: We were never actually able to finish our project, mostly due to time. There was definitely enough time given but our team started kind of late, not only that we had to change our design multiple design and more or less start over. Our final design however was definitely the right design and we would have been able to make it work had we had more time, in my opinion, but again that was due to a late start. When we had finished all we had left to do was the programming, the design and assembly was all done. Given another chance the biggest thing i would do differently is get started sooner so I have as much time as possible and i would also go over every possible design i can think of before going into the building process. We were not able to able to fulfill the problem statement,we had the right design and it would had worked had we got the machine up and running and programmed. I definitely learned that time management is key and that brainstorming and coming up with the best idea is very important.

A Helping Hand: W did not recieve much help from any other students. We recieved most of our help from you Mr. Olsen, so thank you. We did recieve some help from Freddy who gave us some ideas and pointers and helped with some mechanics when I asked but that was pretty much it. We mostly figured it out on our own.

Achievments: I really like the achievement idea, it was be a very good way to grade. That way there is more freedom as to what you focus your attention on for a grade, which always makes it easier. Some ideas would be an achievment would be for an achievement for getting each marble sorted and partial credit for geting some of them sorted.