Our original plan for our mechanical model featured 4 shrimp with two shrimp cooking (using a frying pan and knife) and two shrimp sitting across from the chefs eating (with a fork and cup). A hand crank would turn the center dial, rotating two central gears which would cause the other gears to begin rotating and causing the various cutlery to move. We planned to use strings to create arms for our shrimp and print our shrimp using the engrave feature of the laser cutter.
After our initial idea was planned, we began making our first prototype of the movement out of cardboard. As soon as we printed our gears and were thinking about the further execution of our plan, we realized that our design had significant issues because the dowels holding the gears would block the movement of the utensils. After examining models from previous years, we decided to switch our design to use cam mechanisms to move the objects and place the gears on the outside of the box. We finished our low-fidelity prototype by printing circles to represent the gears and assembling the box.
We moved on to printing our box in wood (though our kerf was too big causing the box to be too loose) and plasma cutting our frying pan, knife, and fork. We printed our gears on wood and sandblasted them. We also printed our first attempt at cams.
After adjusting the kerf for our box to be 0.008″ and realizing that we needed a smoother shape for our cams, we reprinted our box and cams with the laser cutter.
We first attempted to get rid of the dross on our utensils with the angle grinder, but the pieces kept shifting on the magnetic chuck. We then switched to using the bench vise and the dremel to make our metal pieces shiny. We continued post processing our metal by adding 2 coats of silver spray paint.
For our vinyl element, we printed small circles to represent food in the frying pan as well as a green bell pepper that is being cut by the knife.
To finish off our design, we stained our box, printed the shrimp with the laser cutter, designed and printed our name plate, and made a small cup (that is being used by one of the shrimp).
Clean Workspace
Cost Analysis
Labor – 50 hrs @ $12/hr: $600
Wood – $20
Steel – $5
Pipe Cleaners, Dowels, and Cardboard – $5
Total: $630
