Post-Spring Break

Consulted today with Robert Stark on motor selection. It appears that will we use the following motor along with an Arduino microcontroleer in order to vary the speed settings:

Tomorrow we aim to machine the three rings for our device.

Machining of Stands

Having sent the Creo drawing of the outside stands/housing to Senior Lab Technician Mohamed Haroun, we were ready to machine. Essentially, the files were used in accordance with Mastercam in order to produce the desired G-Code. 

Consulting with Lab Manager Robert Stark, we were able to flatten the surface of two of our 6 bearings in order to easily mount them to the outside stands. This was done on the lathe. 

Adjusting the CNC machine accordingly in order to mount our first piece of stainless steel, our team was ready to begin machining after gathering the required mills/bits:

Initially there were concerns regarding the stability of the support structures. However, as the cutting process was nearing the end, one lab member used a glove to hold onto the freed side of the steel before pulling the piece away from the drill to ensure it did not come loose. The cutting process went smoothly and lasted roughly 2 hours for each side of the housing:

For the first housing piece, the order of the cutting went as follows: inside removal, drilling of holes, then outside material removal. For the second housing, we drilled the holes first, then went for the removal of the inside and outside in order to minimize the changing of the tools. Our final product:

In the meantime, Andrea also went to pickup our oven in New Jersey:

Design Review II

After presenting at the Design Review II, which was peer reviewed by the Ark group, we decided that the best option moving forward with our project is to purchase an entirely new oven. Given this option, we will be able to mount our new design choice of a DC motor to the side of an oven. We will have to run the drive shaft through the oven side however.

A review of the design will be done in order to ensure ease of machining as we will be importing into Mastercam in order to make use of a CNC machine. Such difficulties include that of the inner ring, where a redesign will be done for the attachment of the rods holding the dough.

Contained below is the ideal set-up of our design moving forward:
Ideal_Use

Also, below is the link to our Design Review II written report:
Design Review II Report

Finally, below is out CAD Layout and specific dimensions/numbers are available upon request:

Post-Winter Break Meeting

A meeting following the winter break was held to ensure we were properly prepared for the Design Review II presentation. Tasked were divided up as follows:

Andrea: Full, fleshed out order sheet in preparation for any parts to be ordered on Stock Drive, including part numbers.

Dan: State and design variable definitions as specified by the grading rubric. Also, to start looking into other forms of website designs such as social media via Facebook and/or Twitter

Tom/Brendan: Finishing touches to the overall CAD while looking into a new model for the smaller ring but multiple muffin design. Aim to dimension the parts as well in order to have a complete presentation during Design Review II. This will also give our group a realistic approach to the machining stage and what can or can not be done by tools available to us.

Brian: Look into starting the paper version of the Design Review II as well as updating schedules. Consult with professors with regards to the use of aluminum subjected to the heat of an oven.

A new concern has risen with regards to the motor selection. It appears that the originally selected spring loaded motor has plastic parts, which clearly will be detrimental during use in an oven. Research into alternative methods such as ceramic 3-D printing will also be done, especially with Shapeways, Inc.

Design Review I

Our group's first design review was given today and as a fun test, we passed out muffins that were divided in half as muffin tops and muffin bottoms. Verifying the popularity of the muffin tops, it was to no one's surprised that the last remaining muffins were roughly 10-12 muffin bottoms.

After our presentation, concerns were raised in regards to our project:
Design_Review_1_Paper
Design_Review_1_Presentation

1.) Thermal Expansion of aluminum, which is the primary material for our overall structure. Raised by Professor Ateshian, we note that Al has a high thermal expansion coefficient. A different material could be looked into, such as ceramic. We originally choose aluminum due to its ease of manufacturing and the fact that it is a material we are used to working with. 

2.) The potential for a cookie sheet effect around the location of the dough's holding mechanism. Since we need a support, as small as it is, such an issue will be difficult to avoid but will be taken into account during the following redesigns for Design Review II. 

3.) A final note is made by Professor Myers in that our design can currently only make 1 muffin or baked good at a time. Such is the case, we will look into designing an additional structure to take this into account pending funds and time remaining after finishing the initially discusses goals.

The following video demonstrates the proposed motion of our device and was done through Creo:

We also performed calculations pertaining to our proposed model:

In the above figure, the colored cyclical random curves represent the x, y, and z measures while the lines of matching colors represent the averages of the Creo measures. The dashed black lines represent the position of the center of the concentric rings, the point at which we desired the averages to fall. Though this analysis was done for just 20 seconds, there is a very small deviation in the average position from the center position, verifying the design assumptions.

In addition to tracking the motion of the point, a connection reaction torque measurement was defined to determine the amount of torque required to produce 30 RPM. Such a result required near .5 Nm of torque, which will be taken into consideration for motor selection.

Thus, over the winter break period, we will look into 2 major areas of concern:
   i. Spring loaded motor versus any other type of external motor
   ii. Aluminum material versus ceramic or steel for the major of parts to be manufactured

High-Temperature Motor and Literature Review

Consulting with Professor David Vallancourt revealed that the use of a motor within the oven is not highly recommended, so alternative methods would have to be researched.

Weighing the selection of the aerotrim versus that of a conventional rotisserie oven, we justify the use of an aerotrim as we aim to eventually make use of less dense doughs. The use of a conventional rotisserie oven would fail in this aspect as verified through preliminary testing since a drooping effect due to gravity would occur. 

Completion of the literature review was done with all three parts taken into consideration: Literature_Review

As a result, we are currently working with a spring loaded mechanism for the motor device that can potentially be purchased through Stock Drive. 

With the Design Review I coming up, we decided to split up the work in order to prepare for the presentation.

Below are the relevant documents from the Literature Search used moving forward:
Gyroscopic Amusement Apparatus Patent
Continuous Bread Baking Article

Initial Testing and Literature Review

A meeting of all members resulted in the testing of a rotating piece of a dough. With a dense piece of dough on a skewer that was attached to a hand drill, we decided to see if rotation would have any dramatic effects on baking. After an amount of time passed for the baking process to occur, we noted that a successful crust was produced on all exposed surfaces and the dough was deemed edible by all members of the group. 

Alleviating that initial concern, we moved on to perform a literature review in which we divided into three sections:

Patent Search: Andrea Weiss and Dan Mullins 

Journal Search: Brendan Huss and Tom Kesling

Internet Search: Brian Huynh

Searching ideas for a holding mechanism, we stumbled upon the aerotrim, a gyroscope like device that spins with three rings. We believe a similar design will allow for enough degrees of rotation while hold the bread steady in the middle with minimal contact. 

The meeting concludes noting that the literature review is due on November 20, 2012.