April is the final complete month our team had to work on the project. It was primarily dedicated to working on the CAD model and making further refinements to the design. As the month ended, we were able to address all of our original goals to some capacity.
Our two mechanical engineers made a functioning CAD model, ran stress analysis, and considered a small range of material options. We expect the later semesters to make further modifications to increase portability, ease of use, and ergonomics. We have some ideas we have for these areas as well as some direct feedback from our project partners, both of which we plan to pass down to the next group. For example, we have considered a “dolly-like” approach to increasing portability and our project partners have suggested a cover of some sort to encase the hinge in the design.
Because our stress testing for the individual parts of the design went so well, we believe future teams may be able to use a less strong but lighter material. The next stages of the project would be further refinement of the CAD design, followed by prototyping. We believe that the final project may be delivered as soon as the semester after the next semester of EPICS.