Mechanism Assembly

 

Over Thanksgiving break, initial assembly of the mechanism began. Shown below is one of 30 of the 3D-printed parts picked up last week:

Penny for size reference

Near the bottom of the part is a small nub; this was intended to be a pass through for fishing line that would ultimately connect to the servo motors. However, in the SolidWorks part file, this hole had filets added to it, and this may have caused too much material to fill inside of the hole. Essentially, there was no hole through which fishing line could be fed. The part had to be modified, and by that, I mean I had to find a random nail on the ground and twist away at the nub until a hole appeared. The end product is shown below:

Making that tiny hole with this nail was a tedious and tiring process

 After all of the 3D-printed parts were fixed, I had the dowel pieces cut and pre-drilled to allow for the insertion of #4 1/2-in wood screws, which would attach to the 3D-printed part as shown below:

 

 

It's a very time consuming process to assemble each of these, so it will have to be finished over the course of the week of December 2nd.