As you can see in the image carousel to the left, our first CAD design took designs from objects we found in our teacher's classroom, such as a magnifying desk lamp and monitor mount. The way these mounts operated and were very effective was something we wished to replicate in our design.
In our CAD design, we used a mount design that was pretty similar to what we mentioned previously. The plate is where the monitors or desktops gok and the hole in the middle of the plate is where the cables that are connected to the Raspberry PI pass through.
On Inventor, we were able to test how our design should work properly, and to show how we could rotate our mount in many directions.
Our first physical design was a mock-up that functioned properly. We created it out of cardboard because it would have been unreasonable to 3D print it. However, our current prototype design would make this difficult as there is currently no mechanism to simply "connect them". Furthermore, the size that we made the mock-up is the size that the actual final design would be, since we needed to test its functionality.
The cardboard mock-up, while it was relatively aesthetically pleasing was definitely not fully functional in the way we wanted it to be.
1. Cardboard was not the best material to use because it was flimsy, and was not able to main
2. The screws we used to connect the two bars of the cardboard had too much friction, and the screws were not big enough to secure the bars effectively.
3. The design that we made is not proportional in regard to the weight at the top, and the lack of weight at the bottom.
Because of our ineffective design, it was very difficult for the design to stay upright, which prevented us from collecting data. We hope to recreate the design out of VEX parts such as C-channels so we can test it effectively and gain useful feedback to help alter the design. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to meet any of the rubric requirements relating to "Constructing a Testable Prototype or Process" or "Analyzing Test Data" until we are able to finish that VEX model.
Reflection:
We had good primary thoughts on how we should make the mount for the wheelchair, but we didn't execute properly and should've spent more time brainstorming about what materials we should've used. The cardboard mock-up that we made was not well thought out and we should've spent more time thinking about whether or not our design was actually going to be effective.