Final ME 170 Project

So we just finished our final project for ME 170. For this project, we had to make an assembly of parts, where at least one part moved relative to another. We were allowed to make something that already exists, but we had to make some modification or improvement to it. We chose to make a toy Transformer, which unfolded from a flashy sports car into a Transformer robot whose arms and legs detached to reveal markers inside. It was a pretty cool concept, and definitely went beyond what was expected. Since this project was so challenging, it took us well over 100 hours in the EWS labs to finish, including some really late nights and an all-nighter. It turned out well, however, so hopefully it was worth it. We do really feel that we have a good grasp of ProE Wildfire now.

To make our project, we used a similar approach to the Ark of the Covenant (see my earlier post for info on that). This was another "artistic" design, but instead of making one design, we had to make 2 that fit together in both positions! We decided to simplify things greatly by making the Transformer just open its doors and have the arms fold out, and the legs slide out of the rear of the car. This was a lot easier than the actual Transformer toys (though still quite challenging). The first thing we worked on was making the basic frame of the car. To that, we added doors, wheels, and a bottom. Then we had to make the hinges and parts of the actual Transformer, which is when we ran into trouble. We had made the sides of the car on an 85º angle, which meant the doors had to be on that angle as well. The hinges, however, had to be vertical, otherwise the doors would open at an upward angle, which would not work. While we could have just made the sides of the door vertical, we wanted to retain the visual appeal and realistic appearance of an actual car, so we stuck it out and after countless hours and many attempts, finally got the door to fit onto the car without any interference.

We dealt with many other problems on the way, but after it all came together we hit another roadblock: engineering drawings. These drawings show the dimensions of all the parts we made. That means the more complicated the part, the more convoluted the drawing, because it has more dimensions to show on the same 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. Most of the parts weren't too bad, but when it came time to dimension the car body, with its many curves, extrusions, and holes, it took some clever organizing and about 4 pages of drawings to show everything we needed to show.

All in all, I think this was another successful project. We definitely set the bar high with our difficult design, but just like our last project, it really shows that we put as much effort into it as we did. Making markers that fit into a robot that can fold into a car is no small feat, especially when you have to stay up until 5 am every night for a week to get it done, but we're really proud of our work in this class!