Week 1 Portfolio Post
In contrast to what I’ve done in previous engineering classrooms, Advanced Drawing & Design is driven completely by what WE want to make. As the first assignment, Mr. Larson had us prepare a project proposal, something that I’m sure we’ll do several times this year. For my project proposal, I researched several engineering topics and wanted to find out what direction to head in for engineering. I decided on a bigger mechanical structure that could help me in improving how I plan and assemble parts in engineering: a water-powered mill. The water-powered mill should act as a good introductory project as it should be able to jog my ability of engineering due to its relative basic parts, but also help me grow my understanding of bigger mechanical structures.
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Week 2 Portfolio Post
This week, I've finished researching the parts of the water-powered mill, so I'm starting on making it's first part: the water wheel. Instead of choosing to make the water wheel in one part, structurally and aesthetically, the water wheel will turn out better by making it in multiple parts. So far, I've started on the planks, bolts, and the sides of the water wheel. Additionally, to make the structure more accurate, I've looked into standard bolt sizes so that I can recreate them in Inventor and use them in my design. Next week, I think I'll finish up the parts of the water wheel and start making the axels.
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Week 3 Portfolio Post
On Monday, I was called to go my counselor, Mrs. Shapiro, to learn more about college and scholarship application, so I wasn't able to work on the project as much as normally. On Wednesday, I changed the length of the outer plank to a standard five feet, which should act as an easier measurement instead of the 50.5 inches I had before. I also decided to start writing the measurements of the parts on a piece of paper that should help to find how the parts should fit with each other and overall, be a faster tool to use. This paper helped me find what thickness of the water wheel rings I want and the size of the hex bolt, which I also finished. I've started working on the outer ring of the water wheel, but need to still make the holes for the bolts and holders for the inner paddles. I've also started planning on the inner ring of the water wheel, the main axel, and the inner paddles.
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Week 4 Portfolio Post
This week, I was able to progress fairly far by figuring out the measurements of each bolt and plank to fit perfectly in the water wheel. By doing this, I figured out I needed a bigger bolt part to sandwich the planks with the inner rings. So with the measurements I started and finished the bigger bolt, inner ring, and outer ring. When I was finishing up the outer ring by adding slots for a bigger plank, I ran into the problem of cutting out slots that intrude on some of the bolt holes on the other side, but it was solved by just spacing the pattern differently. Next week, I'll finish up making the middle planks and start on the main axel.
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Week 5 Portfolio PostThis week was a little shorter than it would have been due to a Flexible Learning Day on Monday. Despite that I've finished all of the parts of the base water wheel and have begun assembling the parts. The last part I had to make was the interlocking paddles between the water wheel, which was made using the plank as a base. I'm currently halfway through the assembly so I'm sure I'll be able to finish it next week. I also will start on the axel and other parts of the grinding mill next week.
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Week 6 Portfolio Post
This week, I ran into a couple of problems with the assembly; I had to reverse the direction of all of the holes for each of the rings so that the direction of the assembly will be in unison and I had to alter the bolt part into multiple sizes so that it will fill each hole correctly and so that it can line up correctly with the newly-made nut part so that the wheel, if in real life, would be tightened.
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Week 7 Portfolio PostMy week started off badly after having to re-constrain all of the screws and bolts to both sides of the wheel due to changing the file name of the inner ring. Despite that, I started planning for the remaining axels and mechanisms needed to complete the water-powered mill. I was also able to complete an axel for the wheel and receiving end for which the axel can rotate on. Now that the water wheel assembly is complete, I plan on making the parts and completing the full assembly in the next two weeks. Although this may not be possible because we have less class periods due to the Virginian governor elections.
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Week 8 Portfolio PostThis week, as stated in last week's portfolio post, I wasn't able to do very much because of the gubernatorial elections for Virginia. Still, I finished up the axel receiver and the final water wheel assembly. I don't think I'll try to add the different components of the grinding mill as most of it is just simple axel designs and planning to make each one fit each other. I would say this is the end of my water wheel design and will move forward onto a different project from now on. Next week, I will have decided on a new project to start and plan to start making parts.
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Week 9 Portfolio PostThis week, I started on my new project: a meat grinder. I looked up some reference images on Google and have already finished the main meat grinder body and started on the hand crank. It is a fairly minor project so I hope to finish this up next week with the completion of the hand crank. I included some screw holes on the bottom of the meat grinder for attachment to a table but I don't think I'll make a screw part as it won't add much to the overall project or assembly. I've been able to learn how to use coil as a tool to make parts more with this project so far.
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