Hi. My name is Angel Vergara. My project for these eight weeks is a simple sorter meant to show all the minutia involved for doing basic things on the computer’s side, by having it sort blocks that we expect kindergartners to sort like it was second nature.
At the beginning of the week, I was not entirely sure of several aspects of my project, mainly how the sorter would move, but I know have a much clearer plan of what I am building.
On Monday, we started with an exercise to practice designing, my group had to construct a mousetrap powered vehicle. We ended up making more of a wind powered vehicle which turned out what the other team had to make. We then moved on to brainstorming what we would need.
I decided to focus on moving differently sized blocks with a magnet to simplify the demonstration for the audience. The magnet came about to avoid having the claw worry about the different sizes of the blocks. The blocks themselves should be trivial to make, between the simplicity of the model and my colleagues experience with 3d-printing. Another early concern was how the crane would position itself, but between the contact, magnetic, and ultrasonic sensors we have on hand, that should not be much of an issue.
In terms of moving the blocks, I considered a few different mechanisms: a robotic arm, shifting plates under the blocks, a gantry crane, and a standard crane. The shifting plates lost out quickly due to its complexity and the standard crane felt much to unstable. The arm ended being either too expensive or would take too long too arrive. So, the gantry system won by being the only one that would be feasible for an eight week project.
Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent on the above mechanism issue, securing/ordering the parts, and determining a schedule for the next two weeks.
Thursday was spent on learning how to work with the Arduino in basic ways, this was made easier thanks to the Arduino community having a gigantic amount of tutorials and test code for most of the devices I was practicing with. I ended up making a few semi-original things: a rotary dial that controlled four lights, a button that swapped the text of a 16×2 display, and a button that turns on a light then fades it and makes another stay on. I say semi-original because while I did these on my own, someone else has certainly done something identical to these.
Finally, Friday was spent working on this very post and learning about copyright, fair use and creative commons licenses. I also spent some more time working with the Arduino and getting some of the parts we ordered ready. I got to use a soldering Iron, which was pretty cool, though I may have damaged what I was soldering and I misaligned some pins, but otherwise it was really fun.
The bent pins in the center interfere with he rest of the board 
The soldering iron
Also, some parts I ordered arrived on Friday, so with that and some spares we have in the lab, I should be equipped for the at least the next week or two.
Next week, the plan is to make a very simple version of the sorter, my goal is to just have it pickup and move a block across a single axis, not necessarily to an exact spot, though I guess that would be a stretch goal for that week.
