2.007EV

I took one of the big project classes in Course II (mechE) this semester, 2.007.  2.007 is Design and Manufacturing I.  The class is interesting because it attempts to teach you how to design and build mechanical things, in a semester.  That's a pretty ambitious goal, especially given that the class contains about 200 students with varying levels of experience in building stuff.  To give students a better chance of learning what they want to learn, 2.007 has a few separate sections.  This year, there were three.  The standard (and largest) 2.007 section is robotics, in which students build robots to compete in various tasks requiring clever mechanisms, dexterity, and programming skill.  The other sections offered in SP2013 were underwater robotics (led by Ed Moriarty and TA'd by djwise, among others), and electric vehicles, dubbed 2.00gokart.

Huge Kite (10.9 M^2 Nasa Para Wing)

Muffin and Me just finished sewing up our enormous kite.

It's a scaled up version of the one he had made before.

It hauls!

We made some new, big kite bars for it:

check muffin's blog for additional kite media

Tricopter "Mechanical Fuse"

Last Summer, I hastily cut a tricopter frame from carbon fiber + foam laminate.  The stock I'd found wasn't large enough to make the whole thing, so I attached the arms with 4-40 nylon cap screws.

yurtcycle

I cut out some roof panels for the yurt after doing some (very) approximate trig.

 After stitching them up, they didn't come out quite right but it's whangleable.

I loaded up the bike trailer with all of the yurt parts today and rode back to EC.  It handled well, although the crufted bike trailer wheels seem to have lost a bit air while sitting for a month.  I couldn't tell whether the increased pedaling resistance was normal given the amount of stuff being hauled.  Next time, I'll pump up the tires good and hard first.

Although the varnish is over a week dry, it still smells a bit.  I keep my window open for some cross-flow.  I'm looking forward to this weekend (CPW) when I plan on leaving it assembled for a few days in the courtyard.  Closer and closer I get to leaving institvte housing and becoming nomadic.

by a hair

I need to write this down: it's 10:33 PM on the last day of spring break.  The sun has set on this brief period of freedom from the machine.
Memory dump follows:

borked copter

wicked crash!  The carbon fiber foam laminate broke in a place where it had already been weakened by holes.

kites

I heard from Josh that he'd been working on kites.

josh flies the kite that he and laura made (2.3m nasa para wing)

Sweet!