I made use of the CNC Router in Doherty today. I cut  molds for two carbon fiber panels to be used as driver close-outs in the Formula SAE race car. The foam was a 6lb/ft^3 density polyisocyanurate (polyiso for short). The foam has similar properties to polyurethane foam, such as closed cell (very tiny air bubbles), and importantly is not adversely affected by most solvents and can be coated with a wide variety of sealants, paints, and primers. These pieces were cut using a 1/2″ ball nose endmill for the horizontal roughing passes, then a 1/4″ ball nose endmill for the parallel finishing pass. Below are some in process and finished CNC shots. I’ll follow up with primered, sanded/polished, and carbon parts at a later date.

A fairly self expanatory image. A hugging station and a slapping station are isolated from each other except by a lengthy air line. The hugging station is comprised of a soft, huggable creature. The slapping station will have a place for a participant to place their face in anticipation of a slap. Upon the hugging station being utilized for its hugging purpose, the slappee is slapped thanks to an increase in air pressure from the squeeze of the hug.

I made an attempt at generating a model of my very messy room. The following is a screenshot of the model generated by 123D Catch from 50 stills. The .obj file is too large to post to the blog, but is available for distribution upon request.

Here’s a video of an impressive Kinect SLAM execution. SLAM, an acronym for Simultaneous Localization And Mapping, is the bread and butter technique for getting robots to know what’s going on in their world.

A presentation about a soft robot.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/pub?id=1VxhogTbpFGvAwFr5in9Zi1zCKdV7h7xs558NVb1YNIQ&start=false&loop=false&delayms=15000

Designed in Solidworks and exported for use with Pepakura.

Support Files

unfold

I got through 5/7 of these grasshopper video tutorials from Digital Toolbox and I’ve attached the results. Feel free to pick up where I’ve left off.

waffling

Everyone likes waffles. So I made some waffles. These waffles act as the support structure to a fiberglass mold used to create a carbon fiber race car body panel. This model was created in SolidWorks to take advantage of its parametric capabilities. This project is part of the work being done by the Carnegie Mellon chapter of Society of Automotive Engineers: Carnegie Mellon Racing.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/pub?id=1kR2vHh2r1hp96zX9YAivA3qv_ReZC2XQx7_q5M4UWYo&start=false&loop=false&delayms=30000