ThePerfectShot

 This week was focused on learning different equipment necessary for our teams manufacturing process. The equipment learned and utilized are Metal Lathe, Standing Drill Press, Cold Cut Saw, and Threading Tapes. Once the equipment was proficiently learned we focused on machining die at a 1/2 " diameter to bend our circular tubing in the desired sizes for the rim portion of our design. We cut the material at 75" and 89" to have some extra material, this is due to the last few inches of the material not being able to be bent. The excess material will be cut and welded. Tomorrow on the 31st of January the team will aim to test 15 individuals on our build. The pictures above show different stages of the manufacturing process for both machining the necessary die for our pipe bending tool and cutting the material to be bent.

 This week was a busy week for our team, we focused a major portion of our team manufacturing our new design. We were able to successfully pick up our material from IMS. Once the material was picked up our team traveled to Bailey's friends house and began building. This process consisted of measuring and marking the metal for cuts, using a grinder with a cutting wheel to cut the back board plates, used a chop saw to cut the square tubing, cleaning the metal for welding, creating shims to make the square tubing fit properly with little slop, and welding the pieces together. There was no pipe bending machine on hand so in the following days we traveled to CBU business park, at this meeting with Wes we found out the squared tubing we purchased for the rim would not be able to be bent due to a missing die for the machine. It worked out that Wes had to go to IMS and would purchase round tubing to trade us. The pictures above are from Bailey's friends house were we spent a significan...

Our team voted last week on the trailer hitch design as our new build moving forward. This design consist of separate rims, a standard size rim (18 ") used by ages 11+ , a medium rim (22 ") used by ages 8-10, and a large rim (24 ") used by ages 4-7. This design can be easily interchanged by sliding the new rim over the protruding post from the backboard and secured by a pin.

 Over the winter break our team met at one of Bailey's family friends shop. At the shop we were taught how to properly operate and setup a Lincoln MiG welder. During this time we were taught what setting to use to avoid burning through the metal , how to scourge a piece a metal without cutting through it to bend the material at a 90 degree angle in order to add the bolt. The bolt was used to adjust the size of the rim. We spent some time trying to true the metal into a more circular shape, with no luck. Unfortunately we realized that our current design does not work in the way we thought it would, where the rim could be adjusted for the targeted age groups. With a 12 in bolt when it was fully tightened there was a minimal impact on the overall circumference of the rim. We expected the rim to be adjusted the same or close to the length of the bolt that was welded into place. We considered possible cutting the material, re molding into a circular shape, and repeating the building pro...