When first starting our design process, Asher and I talked about our interests and what we have in common. We came up with a bunch of ideas, like biking and rock-climbing, but ultimately decided on creating a mechanism relating to golf.
We first sketched out some rough ideas of what we wanted to do.
Gate 1
We went through several types of mechanical movements and wanted to create two movements including a golf swing and the golf ball moving through the air. We sketched out more rough ideas and even created a cardboard model of what we wanted to do. We created some simple gear files and a box shape for the display for gate 1.
After speaking with the teaching team during gate 1, we realized that we had over-complicated our design completely. We decided to create a type of sling-slot almost using a rubber band that is able to swing a “club” that freely launches a miniature golf ball.
Gate 2
For gate 2 we focused more on creating the panel with gears and the slingshot rather than any aesthetics or full functionality.
We designed a panel with specific slots for the gears and laser cut it with cardboard.
For the sling-slot arm mechanism, Asher designed an arm that has two sides and attaches through a dowel with slots in the end. One side of the arm is the club and makes contact with the ball. On the other side is a rectangular piece that has divots for a rubber band to create tension on the arm. When a piece on the gear pulls the arm back, it will snap back creating a golf swinging motion and hitting the ball.
We also cut two gears with wood so that they could be more stable. We attached all together with some hot glue and tape.
Our design successfully worked, but it wasn’t completely smooth and required it to be reset after every swing.
Here are videos of our low fidelity prototype moving:
Gate 3
For gate three we focused on creating our aesthetics, and smoother mechanics with higher fidelity materials. We edited our original gear panel file, adjusting the distances to the panel walls.
To fit perfectly within the panel holes, we sanded down the dowels that hold the gears and rubber band.
We also created an I shaped structure to stabilize the gear panel and used higher fidelity materials to create the mechanical system.
In this gate, we also designed and cut out our metal piece which we used as the crank. We plasma cut a circular shape with a circle fit for a dowel and sanded it down using a drill.
We then sand-blasted it and spraypainted it white like a golf ball. Using the vinyl cutter, we created a stencil that could mimic the dimples on a golf ball and spraypainted that gray.
Final Iteration
For the final iteration, we recut all the panel pieces, making slight adjustments to all the measurements and adding the nameplate on one of the sides of the panel. We added mechanical movements #24 for the gears and #154 for the slingshot motion because it was the closest on the 507 mechanical movements that we could find.
We decided to create the ramp out of clear acrylic so you could see the ball moving on it a lot clearer.
We also added more aesthetics to the front of the panel like engraving a golfer swinging, spray painting the panels blue, adding fake grassy hills, and painting on a flag.
Total Cost Summary:
Wood Panels: $20/board x 3 boards = $60
Acrylic: $35 for 12 sheets -> $3 for one sheet
Laser Cut Machine Use: $35/hour x 2 hours = $70
Spray Paint: $7/can x 0.15 of the can used = $1.05
Grass Mat: $6/roll x 0.25 roll used = $1.5
Metal balls: $1/ball = $2
Labor Cost: &7.25 x 35 hours = $253.75
Total: $391.3
Clean Workspace:
