April 20, 2012

Summary: We spent the whole class today working on our program that will mesh with the construction of our Marble Sorter. Testing and making sure that the program will work with the Marble Sorter is definitely the most difficult task. Since we are still working on a program that will work our test for the difficult color marbles and the value at which they will be read has been delayed. We will have to work harder next class in order to complete the table at which the readings will be displayed. We have completed our final sketch today.

Task: We have been given one more day (04/03/12) to work on our project. (Thank you so much Mr. Velegol!).

Also, we faced a new concern, and it mainly has to do with the designing of our program. This task is a lot more difficult than what we expected, and has pushed back our testing date. In order to get back on track we will have to work harder on finishing this program.

April 23, 2012

Summary: Today we continued to make our computer program. This part of the project has taken a considerably longer amount of time than we would have expected. So far, we have completed our construction of the sorter.

During class we spent the time correcting our program, and testing it with our marble sorter. We are still facing problems with our hopper and the program.

Design Modifications:

After we have started our building process we have noticed some things that we had to change in order to get our machine work.

We have switched our motor to another one because the previous one did not accomplish its work completely (the problem was that the gear on the motor and the gear that helps the valve move were not meshed well). Also, we have added some new pieces to our construction to make it more stationary. (04/20/12)

We also added one more valve and a motor to it to make sure that the rest of the marbles stay in one place while another one is getting checked for the color with a lamp and a photo resistor. (04/20/12)

After adding another valve and a motor we had to move every other piece to another place in order to get all that set up properly. (04/23/12)

We added some side pieces to our track so the marble would not fall off that track till it reaches its bin. (04/23/12)

Final Program:

Subroutine(s):

Reflection:

At the very beginning of this project we were assigned to design and build a Marble Sorter. The purpose of this project was to build a machine that would be able to sort different types of marbles. We used clear glass, opaque glass, and blue glass marbles in our design. We have started at a very good point by deciding who is going to be in charge of what parts of the project and then as a group did a pretty good research on ideas for the design. Then we started our work on the actual design and the construction. This part of the project went very good, but it took us longer than we planned which slowed down all of the other factors of the project and plus we expected the work in the computer program to be much easier than it really was. At that point we faced our first unexpected failure. We had some issues with our design, which we hoped would work well. After figuring out the constriction problems we tried to test our machine and we faced our second failure – the computer program. If we had a chance to actually rebuild our design and to prevent both of those failures we would definitely do a list of corrections. Firstly, we would definitely jump right into that computer program and start testing the sorter while finishing up building process. Secondly, we would try to manage our time more wisely so we would stay on track and keep up a good work. Lastly, we would stay after school as a group to keep working on our project and have more time for it. The results that we have got so far partially fulfill the problem statement. We have built the design that we have planned to build and we got some action from the machine using the computer program. But the actual project was not finished. We have learned a lot from this project. First and above of all is how to collaborate in a group of such different people with very different ideas, points of views and opinions. This is not as easy as one might think. Also, we definitely have learned how to communicate to get the best from each of the group members and how to use their best sides in a good way. The entire project was very challenging for our group as well as for the rest of the class. This project is not easy and it makes you think and challenge yourself. For us, the most challenging part of the project was working in the computer program and putting all things together. Some of the creative changes that we would make to our design solution if we could start over are make our design bigger, add more colors (make it colorful), make it do extra moves, etc. Even though this project was very difficult to accomplish we still like it. It is fun to make a machine with our hands, make it move, and get a result from it. Even though we did not finish our project we still had a great time doing it. We like challenge ourselves and learn more and more. That’s exactly why we are here in this class! Roll Pirates Roll!