Week 5 Term 4

It is FINISHED!

Week 4 Term 4

This week I came in everyday before school and most days after school. And Saturday and Sunday. I have almost finished everything. I came across countless problems but you can see them in my evaluation.

Week 3 Term 4

On Tuesday this week I dug out the Styrofoam from my vacumn mould and moulded the second half of the bulb. On Wednesday I was sick but I came in after school and cut off the excess on my vacumn mould. I then trimmed it on a gerbil. Then I cleaned it. I managed to get a frosted look by cleaning it with thinner and a paper towel. I will do this for all the rest of the bulbs too now. I will also be 'sewing' the half bulbs together with more vacumn form material. On Friday I came in in the morning and posted photos and blog and calendar. In the rest of the day I will have practical. I will need to dig out the Styrofoam from my second mould and clean and trim it. I will then finish filing down my largest polystyrene bulb and vacumn form it, in two halves and clean and trim these. I will need to finish off my second half of the wood bulb as well, and vacumn form both halves (plus cleaning and trimming). And at some point I will have a video interview. And I'm coming in on Saturday..

Week 2 Term 4

On Tuesday I cut out polystyrene circles to make a mould for the vacumn forming machine. I cut them out on the band saw, no problems. I then cut the top off to make it the right height and glued them together. They were left to set. On Wednesday we did blog and calendar. I posted two photos. I also worked on my checklist a little more and wrote down the questions for the video evaluation interview. On Friday I had more practical. I did my first vacumn forming on a half of my styrofoam bulb because the whole was too big to fit. A few pieces of vacumn forming material were wasted. I also cut out and stuck together more styrofoam circles for the bottom bulb.

Week 1 Term 4

On Tuesday this week I did blog and calendar. We were given the final checklist to work on and I could tick off most of the components. I have to finish off the rest. On Wednesday we had practical. I took my wood out of its clamps and Terry cut them out for me. I also drilled out holes in the top of my jewel brckets. I had a problem in that I broke three of them. I cut more on Friday but this was really annoying. On Friday I sanded my wood circles in the woodwork room. I also learnt abotu the wood lave which I will have to use next week.

HOLIDAYS 27 Sept-12 Oct

In the holidays I didn't really do anything technology related, except think about what I have to do when I get back to school, because I was away most of the time. I know that I don't have much time left and I have to work mega hard until the end of term. Next thing I have to do is working on cutting out the wood for my mould, for the vacumn form machine.

Week 10 Term 3

On Tuesday this week Terry wasn't there so we had a reliever. The activity Terry left us to do was origami. So we made paper boxes and boats for an hour. On Wednesday we had half a period of blogging and calendaring. The other half of the period we had practical and I was cutting out squares of wood to shape into spheres on the wood lave, to be a mould to use on the vacumn forming machine. I cut them out on the band saw in the wood work room. The first 6 I did were 350mm by 350mm, and the second lot were..

Week 9 Term 3

On Tuesday this week we had practical. I cut out two more of my jewel design brackets on the CAM machine, and filed the ones I'd cut out in week 7. I also took photos. On Wednesday I did my blog and calendar. I also added photos, changed labels and worked on my check list. On Friday I finished the last of my brackets and filed them all to perfection. On the last set of brackets the CAM machine went all the way around so I didn't have to set up the machine twice. In don't know why that happened. Next week I can start constructing the base.

Week 8 Term 3

this week was exam week so we had no classes.

Week 7 Term 3

On Tuesday this week I started my Poly morph sheet, I had to boil up the jug 3 times to get the water hot and keep it hot. We then put the Poly morph balls into the water. Straight away they started going clear and lumping together. I was able to roll it out soon, but some bits were still too hard and went even harder once it was out of the water. I put it back in but the water wasn't hot enough. I need to finish it on Friday because I didn't have time to boil water up again on Tuesday. On Wednesday I did blog and calendar. I also re-coloured my blog. Terry checked my blog and gave me six credits. On Friday we did practical. I started to finish off the Polymorph but came to the decision that it wasn't going to work because there were too many bubbles and lumps in the surface of it. It wouldn't cut right or look nice and acrylic would do the job just as well. So I decided to use acrylic. First I drew up the jewel design on 2D design, then cut out the first two brackets in pink acrylic, on the CAM machine. A problem I encounted was that the CAM machine cut out the outline perfectly but ignored the shallow inner line. I don't know what to do about this so I just got rid of the outline and got the CAM machine to go around again and cut out the inner lines. I had to do this for both sets of two brackets.

Week 6 Term 3

On Tuesday this week we were in the computer labs. We had our final checklist given to us and we were working on finishing it. I just changed some labels and updated a few blogs. I also added some photos. On Wednesday I was sick. On Friday Terry gave us the Poly morph. It is plastic that melts in hot water and can be moulded. I will use it to make brackets to stick the base together, so I don't have to use aluminium, which doesn't fit with my design. On Friday I designed the brackets. The design (see the photo) is a jewel. It will fit over the base. There are eight of them to make. I decided that I would roll the Poly morph into a sheet and cut out the eight jewels on the CAM machine. I will then bend the end flaps over by adding hot water.

Week 5 Term 3

On Tuesday this week I first quickly changed some labels on my blog. Then I consulted with Terry and started on my next step; to drill holes in the two white bottom discs. I had to mark eight holes evenly around the circle, 10mm in. I figured out a good plan for doing this (see above drawing. I drew in the red lines and then just measured 10mm in on each line) I then drilled out the holes. On one discs I used a 3mm bit and on the other a 2.5mm. Next step is to drill holes on other discs. On Wednesday I blogged and did by calendar and posted pictures.

Week 4 Term 3

On Tuesday this week I changed the labels on my blog postings. I also posted a picture of my finished mock up design and several pictures of my first two discs being cut ut and fully cut out. On Wednesday I did blog and calendar. I also posted pictures of my designed circles on 2D Design.
On Friday I measured and cut out my 100mm bright green disc. I also cut out the two 200mm base discs, in white acrylic (I changed this, from aluminium/clear acrylic, so that you cannot see through to the circuit and that it matches the acrylic used for the rest of the discs). My next step for these will be to drill out holes in both of them.

Week 3 Term 3

On Tuesday I worked on my mock up. I almost finished it. I'll fully finish it on Friday. I also consulted with Terry. I figured that there was no where in my design for my circuit to hide, so now I have a base in my design. The bottom disc will be made of clear acrylic or aluminium and then there will be ANOTHER disc, the same size, under it, made of aluminium. They will be joined by a 10mm piece of aluminium and rivets. The other change we made is that, instead of coloured LED's, I will have the top three discs made of coloured acrylic. The spheres will be clear vacuum form. I will have several bright white LED's which will shine through the coloured discs and reflect off the clear sides. The wires will come from the circuit, hidden in the base, up the walls to connect the LED's.
On Wednesday I did blog and calendar and posted a photo of my mock up in progress. On Friday I finished my mock up. I cut out my fluoro pink and blue discs on the CAM machine. It went real smooth with no problems.

Week 2 Term 3

On Tuesday we had practical. I put silicon on my box, around the solar panel, to seal it. Then I started my mock up. After I had a talk with Terry I changed the diameters of the discs on my Solid works design. Originally all four were 10mm across. After talking I changed them to 200mm (on the bottom), 150mm, 125mm and 50mm (on the top). I then cut out all these discs. I attached the bottom to the next one with a 200mm piece of cardboard. I put the first strip of corrugated cardboard to be the outside of the bottom sphere. Om Friday I will work on finishing the rest of my mock up. We have two periods of practical.

Week 1 Term 3

On Tuesday we were in the computer lab. I commented on Henry's blog, and he commented on mine. He said "Your blog is looking good and you seem to have everything needed and the solid works design is looking good but you may find it hard to build. P.s I enjoyed Terry's comment!" On Wednesday I was sick so not at school. This was a problem because I didn't get any work done. On Friday I did my blog and calendar (which I would have done on Wednesday). After that I got my prototype almost finished. I removed the glue from the solar panel and sanded down the scratches on the top, with a ? machine. When we tried to stick it down it was difficult because the the soldering that attaches the wires to the solar panel did not fit in the holes that were made for them. We used a different type of glue and balanced some weights on top so that it would stick without having to be right on the top of the box.

Week 9 Term 2

+Tuesday we were in the computer lab. We had been given a checklist of postings we need on our blog. An updated version of the old one we got. I did my blog for the week before and updated my calendar. I added photos of my work on my circuit last week and wrote a Freehand evaluation. Today I am so tired so all I have done is write this blog. Because I can't concentrate. On Friday I will take the photos of the inside of my box and add them. I will also stick the fallen down or out bits back with one of the new glue guns. Tonight or tomorrow night I have to take a photo of the box working, inside and outside.

Week 8 Term 2

On Tuesday I recreated my design on Solidworks and tried out some colours. I posted this on my blog along with the picture of the design in process. I also posted some other pictures of last weeks work. On Wednesday I worked on my blog and calendar. After updating these I Put some of my other postings in order. On Friday I finished my prototype box. I worked on my circuit attaching the wires and the components - the battery snap, the LED's and the wires for the solar panel. I had to stay until 5 to finish it. The wires kept breaking at the soldered joints which made the process MUCH longer because I had to keep fixing them. I also had trouble with the glue guns. They were too big and bulky, the glue dryed too fast and it was just too hard to use with the glue running out. If I did this again I would use something else to stick the LED's up, or at least a smaller glue gun. I finally got the circuit glued in, the bottom screwed on and the solar panel siliconed. But I forgot to take a photo of the inside so I have to take it apart again. While I have the bottom off I will have to fix the LED which fell back through its hole and the battery snap which came unstuck from the side. I will do that next Friday. In the weekend (!) I wrote a copper research paragraph and a vacuum plastic research paragraph and my evaluation of my prototype box. Which took ages.......

Week 7 Term 2

On Tuesday I published a whole lot of photos of my progress on Friday last week. Then I went on to Freehand and finished off my annotations on my first design, so I could do Solidworks on Wednesday. On Wednesday there was a computer knowledgeable guy in the classroom who helped me to figure out how to get my design into 3D!! We finished in all but I have to do it again next week to show that I can do it by myself. We had one problem where the solid lines should have been construction lines, so it wasn't 'closed', but the computer guy figured that out soon enough. On Friday we had two periods of practical. I drilled out the holes and screwed in the bottom plate. Then I started on doing up my circuit. I couldn't quite work the solder suck but I got someone to help me and it was all good.

Week 6 Term 2

First period this week we had practical. I drilled out all the holes on my brackets. I had a small problem with this in that I tryed to push the drill through too fast and it got stuck. But I figured that out in the end. I didn't get much done as I was late. On Wednesday I updated my blog and calendar and uploaded some photos. On Friday we had a double practical. I put in my rivets first. This was very hard for me as I was not strong enough to actually use the gun. So I ended up getting someone else to do it for me. I also sanded and filed my bottom plate and then scribed it and drilled out the holes. No problems there.