Lend A Hand

     Throughout the work period of February 4 to February 17, the team has finished 3D printing and is currently waiting on fasteners and bolts. The ratchet system was printed and was able to fit properly into the t-slot extrusion after sanding down  and evening out some surfaces. Some fasteners have also been collected at local hardware stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's. The clamp has also been finalized and rotates as intended with the use of bearings.  Figure 1: Ratchet System Slotted into Aluminum Extrusion Figure 2: Assembled Rotational Clamp with Sleeve Bearing Carriage and 3D Prints Figure 3: Assembled Sliding Handle Bar       Currently, some specialized framing brackets and fasteners are currently being sorted out through the local vendor as there was a delay on their part. The team has placed (not paid for) the required order with the vendor, and are waiting for  them to respond once they have acqu ired the items. The team's plan if the vendor does not receive the p

          For the work period of December 11 - February 3, what work toward your team's project has been completed?  Please provide a description of tasks that are completed, as well as tasks currently in progress. During the work period, the majority of completed work included device redesigns and accumulation of materials. Over the winter break, the team made efforts to make sure that the entire device would work by the specifications that were established. Multiple decision reinforcements were made to improve the reliability of the device. First, the clamp changed its design to have torsional springs (highlighted in blue) inserted between the inside and outside clamp as shown in Figure 1. This is to ensure that the clamp always closes to the default position after each rotation. Figure 1: Clamp Torsion Springs Default (left) and Open (right) Positions For the clamp to rotate as intended, bearings were placed between the outer and inner shafts. The bearing allows the inner shaft