Week 9 Final!

Thursday, June 1st was the day of the performance. Throughout the week and the night before we finalized the major changes to our design, the final circuitry and mechanism completed with finishing touches.

Image 1: Final Breadboard

 Image 2: Lower view of project

Image 3: Upper view of project

A lot of electrical tape was used in constructing the stands for the drums, and to make the project look less ugly, we spray-painted them red. We also spray-painted the project stands blue, and it turned out it required all of our blue spray paint. Fortunately, we had already finished the golf balls. 

The new mechanism worked so much better than the last because of its almost-never-failing reliability, However, it was pretty difficult cutting out holes in the PVC pipes for the plastic parts to fit since we did not have any electric tools to come to our aid. So the night before, some of our lungs were filled with PVC pipe dust. 

To up our image, we incorporated LEDs we had bought earlier in the term and laced them around the drums. This was our plan at first, however we decided to change it because of another problem we encountered, in addition to the drums beginning to fall because the LEDs were pulling on them and we had to move the drums anyway. 3/5ths of the LEDs somehow got disconnected and weren't lighting by the end of the lab period. So at the performance, we laced the LEDs around the metal grid, and the LEDs that were out faced away from the audience.

The positioning of the LEDs were changed because of the fact that we needed something to catch the golf balls. One of our first ideas was a plastic bag, but when we tried to attach it to our project it looked soooo bad. So our next idea was to use a net. Unfortunately, after asking friends and everyone in our lab section, no one had a net we could use. And then we started weaving one, using string and superglue. It got to a foot by a foot-and-a-half, but other group members bought a laundry bag from the Barnes and Nobles bookstore and cut it up and used it as the net in the project after a little bird suggested the idea to us. Group thirteen had its net, and we proceeded to transport our whole entire project to the BLACK BOX THEATRE!

Image 4: WEAVING DAT NET

At the theatre, we made last minute changes and fortunately it performed and worked. Our snare wasn't used in the end project, but it worked out perfectly because a servo began to fall off. After all our late night struggles, broken spirits, and countless endeavors to make changes to the project, it paid off. 

Image 5: Our baby

Image 6: Everyone's project!