Mechanical 1:1

Owned by Shrinjay Mukherjee
2021-12-28
2 min read

What do you plan to work on over the next term?

  • Gimbal: Prototype ready to be tested, already printed and assembled.

    • Testing for the drone. For the Gimbal, we need to hook up the gimbal control board and test it. Testing is currently blocked by the fact that we just don’t have a board, should have board by end January.

  • Grabber: We have the frame ready, needs to be tested with servo.

    • Finished protoype by the end of January.

    • We need to hook up the servo to the grabber and have it powered. Talk to FW and EE about a) getting basic firmware written for this and b) getting servos hooked up to some controller.

    • Still need to consider how to attach the rubber band to the frame of the grabber itself.

    • Still need mounting hardware for the grabber.

  • Frame: Prototype complete for the frame, motors were replaced.

    • Over the next term, we’ll test the frame and see how the test reults play out. Testing the frame requires us to just see if the drone flies. Need to see what other teams need to do to get a test running. Shoot for late January.

      • Need to talk to Sahil to see what’s needed to get this to a test state.

Design Process

  • Ideas → Design → Fabrication → Validation

  • Bottleneck right now is that it’s difficult to do the research because constraints aren’t well defined.

    • Improve the process next time is for the mech team to provide a list of constraints they want to know.

  • Ideating is also a bottleneck as some mechanical challenges are difficult.

  • Timing: We are sometimes blocked by supply chain as we’re currently purchasing stuff from Ali express and it takes a long time. Work sessions work around one thing at a time.

    • When planning component purchases for the term, make estimates for international and local suppliers and take local if possible due to faster shipping time.

In Person

  • Not sure yet, find out what people need to work on physically and we’ll take it in as required until covid stabilizes.

  • Prioritize mech for in-person.

How do you plan to run Mechanical?

  • Will continue having work sessions and weekly meetings. Designs can be discussed online during weekly meetings.

  • Mech does task management on confluence instead of asana as the tasks are too big and broken down on the spot.

  • Mech is ok with advisors but needs more manpower for general members.

    • Kick off recruitment with SDC Showcase event and social media.