FabAcademy2017 - Projects
Mechanical design &
March 22, 2017 - Week#9
Machine Design
April 05, 2017 - Week#11
For the mechanical design and Machine design, We made a one axis machine that was able to drill a certain material you put in. But that was not qualifying according to the instructions we were given in the assignment.
I contributed in Drafting the Machine Design, describing the size, functions and deciding the materials that will fit better according to the Idea we had during our brainstorming. I participated much more in Machining and assembling but also whenever we needed troubleshooting in design, I was the leading person to make sure that problem is solve as soon as possible and I was supervising how The Computer controlled Design (Designing parts of our Machine) was being done, to make sure it matches the Drafting I made. I also contributed a lot on Documentation, making group assignment Videos, and webpage.
After getting some input from our supervisor, we decided to upgrade our machine and make it computer controlled and make our tool move on three axis. We made a CNC Drawing machine with a complicated design and it perform well.
We also decided to change the design and make it small, fortunately the machine performed well, and we were asked to attend and exhibit our machine in Transform Africa Summit 2017 that was happening in Kigali from 10th to 12th May. People liked it because we had a lot of shapes that our machine was drawing, it was a good achievement for FabLab Rwanda.
Machine Design is an interesting course, it provides motivation when people are thinking how the machine will be operating after it is built. We were three, we shared tasks, I did machine design drafting. but also we had other tasks that we were doing together.
When the first machine was done, we realized that anything is possible, we can make almost anything. Teamwork is a great tool to making almost anything, when we all have the same goal. We failed once when everyone was acting his own ideas, to treat that, we decided to brainstorm before doing anything. that is when moved forward smoothly.
This is how we panned to execute our tasks to make the Machine.
The video that shows how we made our CNC Drawing Machine is linked here.
Below attached are original files of our 3D Design for our CNC Drawing Machine.