The CBA group this week decided to create a pancake bot. The premise of the design was to use Jake Read's plans and add two different features: A pancake extruder and a griddle.
The griddle was purchased separately, and the team decided that a Siracha sauce bottle would provide the perfect nozzle for creating interesting pancakes.
My roles included milling the delrin rails and making the pancake batter.
I thought milling the rails would be straightforward, but it wasn't. Luckily my teammates, George and Anna had more experience with Fusion and helped me to understand how to create toolpaths from the files and export them as shopbot files so the computer could read the g-code files.
Using the simulate function, I was able to see exactly how the tool would proceed to make its cut.
Each type of cut: boreholes, clear faces, contour and chamfer, required a different toolpath and in some cases, a different tool.
After preparing the small shopbot base to ensure it would be completely flat, I drilled holes in the delrin to secure it to the shopbot's sacrifical layer.
I zeroed out the x, y and z and began to cut. The first two cuts, boreholes and clear faces went very well. Since we had only one 1/8th mill, due to earlier breakage while milling the HDPE parts on the large shopbot, we took turns, and when it came time to use the 1/8th mill several hours later, I made the mistake of re-zeroing the x and y axes without writing down their coordinates.
My shopbody buddy Rui, helped me to calculate the x/y location again, but when we made the Chamfer cut, the location was not right and it damaged one of the rails.
It took a long time to figure out what happened, but we finally did, with Jake Reads's help. Apparently, all we had to do was relocate the x/y axis on the Fusion file and re-export it as a shopbot file. This solved the problem and we were able to resume milling. We had to screw down the rails in order to do the contour cut.
We had to use a small remaining corner of the delrin to place the remaining rail, and went through the whole process again. After the delrin rails were cut, we realized the sacrificial layer was not level, it was beginning to come apart in the middle, raising the surface slightly.
This resulted in an incomplete cut which required post-processing in the for of deburring. Becasue it took nearly two days of work, it felt like a real accomplishment once the rails were complete.
My other significant contribution to the process was to experiement with and make pancake batter.
Being gluten intolerant, I made batches of gluten and dairy-free batter. I have some recent experience learning about clay 3D printers, and I know that the consistency of the clay being extruded is of great importance. Significant problems can arise if the clay is too dry or wet, or has inclusions in it. It was my assumption that our machine was similar to a clay 3D printer, and we had the added constraint of the tiny Siracha bottle nozzle which could not pass lumps.
Using Bob's Redmill mix, I made a thicker batch and then made a slightly thinner batch which I ran through the blender, as per Anna's suggestion.
I learned a lot through my small contributions to the pancake bot, inlcuding getting to know some of my very talented classmates better.
Below is Sean working on programming the Makey Cakey from the gui, Chili Peppr.
From beginning to end, this group project taught me about the various work flow streams and how each is integral to the final product. The group dynamic was challenging but also rewarding when we had hard-won successes and overcame a steep learning curve (at least in my case!). We utilized Slack to communicate and it really helped us organize the various aspects of work. I will likely use this again for future projects.
This week engaged my curiosity about the potential for utilizing machine-making in tribal communities. I can envision this type of work enhancing the ability of community centers, artists, educators, inventors to make useful things for people. I would like to learn more about this process, inlcuding how I can help facilitate it, and perhaps create a machine on my own at some point in the near future.