Caroline Jaffe

For the Machines that Make group project, the CBA section made a "cake-licking" machine. You can read more about it on our group documentation page. Though I was officially on the Arm Team, I also jumped in to help with other tasks when necessary. Here is a list of the ways I contributed to this group project. Below this list are pictures of my work.

During the first group meeting, Ali and I milled the driver board for the gestalt nodes on the Modela.
I assembled the four ribbon cables for the machine, including the more complicated ribbon cable that connects the driver board and the gestalt nodes that needs to be rearranged before plugging into the driver board.
I attended the Tongue Team initial meeting to act as a liason for the Arm Team; we discussed initial ideas for how the two systems would integrate with each other.
I was part of the decision, along with the rest of the Arm Team, to build a Delta Bot instead of a more conventional 2-axis machine. The Delta Bot's arm linkage system is composed pieces connecting the arms to the cardboard stages (the "carriage connectors"), the plate in the center of the arms that supports the end effector (the "center" or "tongue plate"), and threaded rods attached to ball bearings that allow the tongue plate to move around.
After Andy K designed the "carriage connector" and "tongue plate", I 3D-printed these designs. I printed 7 different versions of these pieces on the Ultimaker. Two failed because of the machine (ran out of filament or the filament broke); one piece, printed on the "Fast Print" setting was extremely flimsy; four pieces, printed on the "Normal Print" setting, were successful. I also worked with Tom to print four pieces on the Stratasys Dimension printer. Eric also printed a "tongue plate" on the Form printer.
With Eric and Dhruv, I assembled and installed the linkage. In particular, I connected the threaded rods to the ball bearings, and connected the ball bearings to the 3D-printed pieces using extra pieces of threaded rod and some appropriately-sized nuts. I also did a bit of Epoxy surgery for some of the pieces. The three of us attached the linkage to the frame.
Eric and I did a bit of last-minute work on the arm system: we replaced the flimsy "Fast Print" carriage connector with a stronger piece, and also affixed the carriage connectors to the frame in a more secure way. We experimented with using the Stratasys prints, but found that the holes for the threaded rod on these prints were just a bit too narrow, and decided that even though they may have provided a moderate strength upgrade, it was not worth taking the time to fully clean, sand, and install them.
I played a significant coordination role not only within the Arm Team (sending emails, defining our agenda and action items, etc) but also between the different teams (discussing the ways systems would interface and communicating the Arm Team's progress to other teams).
I started the group documentation page and wrote most (all?) of the Arm Team's documentation.