Walking Duck Will

Post date: Oct 10, 2017 6:55:46 PM

I wanted to create a phone holder so I could attach my phone to a metal rod or a wooden slab and work on either my car or an outdoor project without having to stop to hold my phone and watch a video. My ideas for the design were all over the place. I had no real direction until I realized what I needed from the project. I decided to make wooden clamps to hold down the phone, and I needed a rod that could bend so I could see the hone from different angles. This was a long thought out process that needed to be tested multiple times. I decided to try and make multiple holders to test out which wood and design would work best. I created about 7 different types of prongs to hold down the phone, and I learned that the best one was to be cut out with the laser cuter, then sanded by hand to make the gluing and adjusting look the best. Throughout this whole process, I became really familiarized with the laser cutter. I used it probably 50 times to cut out new designs and to try out new pieces. I really liked the process of creating work on my computer, and then seeing it be cut out piece by piece.

After finishing my project, I looked around at the work of my other classmates. I was really impressed with the work they accomplished. Jackson created a piano type of work that had a bunch of little pieces of wood hitting glass tubes full of water, to create a high pitched sound. I was really impressed with the knowledge of my other classmates that helped me along the way. I was not the most skilled person when it came to sanding wood, but Dylan was a great friend in helping me finish my work. Although I finished it and it worked, I wish I had created different design that would have made the frame of the holder bigger and steadier. I also would have liked to possible 3D print a part of the holder so I would not have had to drill a hole in a piece of wood by hand and make errors. In the end I am very happy with the project, but I am extremely proud of my ability to work on the fly. A lot of times I was in class and a part would break or not work properly, and while I sometimes waited for Mr. D to help, I was generally able to fix the problems on my own. Something I have not been very good at before, but I managed to create new pieces that supported whatever broke and help it in place.

Link to Design: https://drive.google.com/open?id=14wGdY0AhCUSWv2YW_SEZS9yURYwLdqRk

So, i decided to make a moving duck. I am hunter, and i have always had an appreciation for sculptures of animals. I always wanted to create one of my own, but i wanted to step it up a little bit. I wanted to make a duck, that could move across the table. I was looking on the fab academy website, when i saw a movable minion. It was set up on an RC car and it was controlled by a remote control. I am really excited and nervous for this because it can go very wrong very fast. I want to carve out a hollow duck from wood, work with the electronics, put them into the duck, then finish the details on the duck. Hopefully everything goes smoothly, but i need to focus on the electronic aspect most of all.

Here are the new designs for the phone Holder. I want to have a contraption that i can attach to a ledge or a piece of pipe, that can hold my phone for me. I was changing the oil in my car and was trying to watch a video at the same time. it was hard to start and stop cause i had to put my phone somewhere, but hopefully with this, i can have a place to put it and not have to sacrifice the process with stopping to hold the phone to watch.

Update: So today i made a few wooden cutouts of the new design for my phone holder. In my last post I explained that i changed my project to a phone holder. I will hook up a hone clamp to a goose neck rod, then attach suction cups or another set of clamps to the opposite end so it can attach on to an object. I am working on the phone clamp right now. I have made 4 different changes t the design so far. I will have two separate rods held together between two springs.(the pictures are downloading from my phone and ill put them up later). I have made two guiding rods to limit the motion of the two spring held rods.

10/24 Update:

So i have the goose neck rod and i am making the holder for the phone. I was able to make the design for the 3D printer and i am just checking my measurements with cardboard. I have to start figuring out how to attach the goose neck to other objects with a magnet or clamp of some kind. i would like to use a clam because it would be able to fir onto smaller and larger objects without having to make a huge change to the design. It is weighted out fairly well and there is no bounce or struggle to hold up the clamp right now.

10/30/17 Update:

So this is my new design for my holder. I have the attachment put onto the goose neck rod, and now i just have to put this all together and put in the rubber bands. I have the angular pieces to keep the phone held down. There will be a little bit of space for it to move, but the phone wouldn't be able to fall out of the holder. I would like to sand off the actual parts that touch the phone so they don't scratch the screen. If i am able to do that, then i should be close to finishing.

11/2 Update:

So i finished! I have made my phone holder steady and it is capable of rotating 360 degrees. I am going to work on it looking better next class. But i made a it of progress today. It is capable of holding my Samsung phone, and there is no cracks or scratches in the wood or on my phone. I should try to make the holder a little wider so it can hold other types of phones, or i will make another smaller one that i can unscrew and put on.

So i finished my project before, but there were some ways that i could improve the functioning of it. The Picture above is my new, and hopefully final, design for my wooden clamps that support and hold the phone. I created new tabs to hold the phone so that the holders would not wabble as much. I also laser cut a new design so there would be stronger prongs holding down the phone to the beam. I sanded the ends of the actual prongs that hold down the phone, and next class i intend on adding a small piece of metal to the beam, my phone has a built in magnet, and i think that would make it stay a little better.

This is the progress of my design since day 1 of the new project. I started out with a flat piece of wood that was connected to another piece with a rubber band, but i needed a way to make it better. So i made a piece with a hole for the spring to connect in the middle of the structure. It worked, but the wood snapped a couple of times. Then I made a smaller, but stronger piece to see if the type of wood worked better, and it did. Then i made another draft piece to see if it would stay on the path properly, which it did. Finally i added my holders to the piece and rounded off the ends because the points were unnecessary. It was a lot of work, but it now functions much better and it working everyday.

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