Final Fabrication

I enjoyed deciding what to do this project on. At first I had wanted to do a larger piece that involved two hands but I then decided that if I were going to send it to a 3D printer, I needed to make it smaller. I then thought of a pendant idea. Two pieces that fit together was my orignial idea. With the time limit I just caded up the dog tag part. The puzzle piece I will bring into the physical world later. Ben did a great job sketching the design onto the wood. With more access to wood tools and time I am sure he would have finished on time. Overall I am happy with the process up to this point.

The gathered opinion of my group.

Maker Faire :)

We survived!!!!


This experience was unforgettable. The game is in a prototype stage sure, but our work is on the screen. *high fives all around*



People were interested in checking our work out. We thankfully had a varying audience and the feedback was cool. Very few would spend money on the purchase but that is not discouraging, we have all refused to buy that one $2.99 app because of one reason or another. The game could be improved, and we have an idea of were to begin due to the helpful information we received from those who too the time to fill out the survey.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we happily enjoyed all that Maker faire had to offer. We did our showcase, and I know we should be proud of the work we presented.

Final Showcase Design

Think surround sound....but with your vision. There must be a term for it but the closest thing I can think about is 360 vision. or 20 20 vision. The feeling that you are really there would be cool. The robots at the side serve as speakers and they looked cute.
I worked with both the design and engineering teams to see that the original vision of the game was brought to life. As a team, certain people played bigger roles at given times. I do have to add that we all played our part throughout the process. I just wishes we had had more time. Our greatest achievement is having a working prototype.

Reflection Post May First

Sasha and I collaborated to plan out the tri-folds that will be featured at Maker Faire along with the game. One tri-fold will focus on the nature of the video game while the other will zero in on the class as a collaborative team. Documentation throughout the process has helped for these plans to launched. Vijay and Ganesh provided us with the necessary pictures to use on the boards. Tomorrow we (Sasha and I) will paint and finish the tri-folds.

Another thing I was part of this week was pitching the t-shirt idea. I am glad we are heavily considering buying the shirts. Sonia and Alvin have taken on designing the shirts that have been voted on. I heard that they are working together on Monday to finalize a design for the class.

Progress Update

A lot of work was done this week. Audio recordings were completed on Audacity, all types parts are being/ have been assembled on Inventor, and landscapes are coming to life in Unity. A big shoutout to Katie and Pallavi this week, the coliseum is looking great thanks to them :)
This week I worked closely with the audio team and our voice actors. Sasha and I casted Matt as the soldier, Jake as the prisoner, and Ben as the narrator.

Videos from earlier this week:

And pictures:

Overall, it was a good week. We are all helping each other out and with research (thank the pancake lords for Google!) we are getting over obstacles. Makerfaire is around the corner and I know we are all excited,

21 days to go.....CADing is going strong and all the teams are seeing to their duties. Collaberation amongst us all I going very well. I recognize that there are so many aspects that are in progress right now...I'm feeling really good about your work though.

Maker Faire Team

Deadlines. It's important that we apply ourselves wisely in order to meet the dead line in May. The position of project manager enthralls me because I want to have the freedom of helping in any department and just care a lot about seeing this project is as successful as possible.
Minus the scotch of course

May I add that it may be beneficial to have two people in this post?

7.1 Dimensioning Standards

The first shape was easy to make after we saw a demo. It was cool learning to use the scoping tool. The other two shapes were simple to make though I noticed that I took the path of adding additions to what I saw as the base.
Size dimensions and location dimensions are different in that one must be set and changed, the other (size dimensions) just happens as you click and such.
Datum dimensioning is easier to modify later. Chain dimensioning presents constraints.
A written description of an item presents a lot of information that must be processed and "seen" in the mind. A dimensional drawing is the object, with its dimensions, in front of your face.

Interview with Jessica Pauley

Today we had the pleasure to speak to an engineer who works at Spacex. Jessica Pauley spoke with us about her job, she even gave us helpful advice: own up to your mistakes and try to fix them, as soon as you can. She spoke a bit about her some classes she took in college but later explained that due to the recession she found her way to Spacex. Jessica also share that the work hours seemed justified when she remembered that her work had a mighty purpose.

She works in production with a team. Everything that is done is run through everyone. I enjoyed hearing her optimistic and determined outlook on her job. It made me feel that she felt satisfaction coming from her work :)

Game Research: Mortal Kombat

I could probably play this game for hours and hours. This game is multi-player. The original game was thought up in 1989 as a reaction to the popular Capcom fighting game Street Fighter II. It was developed by NetherRealm Studios. This game is intruiging to me because you are interacting with another human holding a game controller. Through avatars you could kick butt or get butt kicked. I enjoy playing this game with cousins and friends.

My personal favorite:

Reverse Engineering

Side view- The toy looks sturdy due to the wooden body. Its curves make it seem safe and inviting.

Back isometric- The glossy black windows add a cool factor. The wheels have a lot of detail to them, making them seem real. 

Front isometric- This toy looks ready to take a 6 year old's mistreatment without a problem. If I were a parent, I would consider it to be safe and well worth my money. The attention to the detail that successfully makes this toy a car comes from it's shape, curves, and simplistic yet accurate design.  

Product: X9-SE

Company: Automoblox

the purpose of this product is to be a car toy, to roll. 

3) The axle pin my be designed in such a way that it secures the rotating of the wheel while keeping it attached to the body of the car. The out most part of the axle (furthest part from the car) allows for the wheel to enter with enough pressure but then expands to keep it in place, the slightest bit but it is efficient.

Cad Model Features

I got this far *crickets clap*
Centering the shapes to the correct dimensions was made easier by Ms. Leppla who explained how to use the dimension button and its features :)
The most challenging shape was the star due to the constructive lines and mess of lines I was not able to complete.
I guess one question that came up through this was: how to successfully do much stuff on one plane and have said stuff not conflict with each other. I'm not being too concise but....that is my current wonder.

Reflection of Challenge

Archit and I focused on using squares and triangles to build a sturdy shelter. The triangle addition was added last because the sticks weren't long enough to reinforce the roof as i wanted. The length of the sticks and the number of dots we had restricted our overall model but it wasn't too bad. On paper you pay more attention to detail and on CAD you are more specific to dimensions.

Inventor Video

Along with my question concerning proper filleting, I was wondering about the best way to make a sphere. I found this video titled:
Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015- How to Make a Sphere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psbjvl6kaH4

Update:
Alvin helped me learn how to fillet properly, check this out:

No idea what it is but it is filleted all around! :)

Form Follows Function (Reflection Post)

I chose to tackle hand held shopping baskets. I think they suck because as you add more items they become more cumbersome. The handles are usually placed across the short sides resulting in and odd hand hold:

I thought about just changing the position of the handles. Placing them going across the longer length of the basket but that would not solve the problem of the basket ramming your leg every time you took a step. I then took a look at shopping carts, they are considerably bigger than than their basket counterparts but having five in aisle can be stressful to the conductor. (Either that or I am just bad at grocery shopping).

My solution was to fasten the shopping basket to a rolling stand and simply have a strong and stable miniature moving shopping cart. Sorta. The wheels are an important feature because it will enable complete maneuverability. The stand is designed after curtain rods, a adjustable height knob is featured above.
This design displays form follows function because the stand solves both of the problems that hand held baskets pose, at least for me. It is similar to IV stands:

A unique feature will have to be the fasteners on platform that will support the basket. In mind I had a circular platform that will have the fasteners at the center, allowing for universal basket use, in theory. At anytime the basket can be removed from the stand.
I like the design but I am not sure about it's cost efficiency, nor if it's compelling enough to make into a product. A prototype may be able to answer this question.
At the beginning of the week we talked about form follows function, I thought I understood the jist of things but it helped having to use the concepts and apply them to a design of our own (of course working off an existing product.)

Reflection Cont.

It is important to model an idea before making a final prototype because it gives you a chance to find and maybe work out the kinks.
I love that each puzzle that was made has its own solution. The experience for solving it is also unique to each individual.
If I could, I would be work to make all the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly.

For the packaging, my idea was to have a hard and thin plastic container around the solved cube and have sell it in some netted baggy.

I tried to think out of the box for this one [;)] by not doing whatever else was, making a hard cube to hold the cube. I tried to base my design off the fancy chocolates that they sell in netted gold colored bags. *shrugs* I did not have the materials to make a representative prototype but above is the general idea.

Reflection of Cubical Journey

MY CUBE:

It is important to note that the pieces did not fit as perfectly as i had envisioned. There was even two who I i had to sand down significantly to assure they interlocked properly.

Let us now take a look at the print cad drawings:

Using Inventor to make these was interesting. 

I asked seven people to solve my puzzle, timing how long they took. Two solved it roughly at the 40 minute mark while the rest gave up and asked me to show them how it the puzzle pieces went. This was a lot of fun, given rough guidelines and materials then being allowed to build something of own own design. At the moment this is all Ms. Leppla asked to be included in the post. I'll update later as needed. 

Hold up! Update haha Alvin solved my puzzle in 2:46 seconds.

Progress so far

To begin this blog post....*rains of sparkles* PUZZLE DESIGN PROCESS. Above is the set criteria for this project.
My two cake layer designs:

I do apologize for my 4 year old coloring skills haha. After consulting beloved colleagues (Luv ya Ben and Sasha!) I chose to complete this project using the second design, the crayon pink, orange, red, aqua, and blue cube. Both layouts fit the criteria but the second design included interlocking pieces. 

Shown above are the pieces to be, made out of the cubes provided by Ms. Leppla. Shout out to her too for offering her class to us today, the first day of finals and offering to help in any way we might need :)

Sasha helped give me feed back by taking time to assemble my puzzle. 

 And these are the isometric sketches of my puzzle pieces. 

I would like to call this my Inventor blueprint. 

At the moment, January 21 2015, 8:38 pacific time this is my notable progress thus far. To Inventor!

I'm Back!! (it 9:31 pacific time)

My Inventor puzzle pieces: 

Well, that was fun. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with Inventor...let's hope I don't jinx it.