ASME International Student Design Competition

Skills:

Arduino, Electronic and rapid prototyping, 3D Printing, Laser cutting, Management, JMP (statistical analysis software)

Objective:

The "Manufacturing the Future" competition requires that engineering students from around the world design a machine that can automate the process of folding and launching a sheet of paper without human interaction. Scoring is determined by the sum of 3 consecutive launches, divided by the volume of the box that the machine was brought in. As such, since volume was a massively scaling factor, we wanted to focus on a modular machine that optimized launching distance for its size.

How it works

1. Human loads paper in between two laser cut acrylic blades

2. The grey high torque motor starts spinning and hits a clicker with every revolution, and stops once there are enough clicks to fully fold a piece of paper (we tested this). The paper is held and folded into shape by the three 3D-printed clamps (images below).

3. When the servo arm is fully extended, it uses the red fixture to lift the Orange flywheel above the blade. The flywheel then starts spinning.

4. Once flywheel meets desired speed, the servo arm contracts to lower the flywheel on to the tip of the paper dart, launching it off the blades.

Parts

Several of the part materials were changed between the regional and the final stage of the competition, but the overall design remained the same. For example, we selected the slotted, aluminum legs to replace our old hinged, wooden legs, reducing the size of our machine when disassembled and increasing the stiffness for the base of the machine. We also changed the manufacturing process for the acrylic blades to reduce friction when firing off the paper projectile.

Prototyping and Regionals

There were a lot of factors to consider, so we ran through a gamut of different launching methods and projectiles shapes. The Machine was split into 3 modularized components after we decided to launch triangular darts with a flywheel:

Launching Factors. Maximized distance by adjusting projectile shape, flywheel speed, launch angle, and blade surface finish,
Folding Factors. Tested consistency of dart shapes by changing loading angles, clamp dimensions, & blade geometry.
Legs Factors. Designed for stability and minimized size. Adjusted material, cross section, and length.

Using JMP (statistical software), we developed a factorial analysis to maximize our desired machine based on the optimized parameters. We would have done a regression analysis, however, we weren't sure if all the factors were independent of each other.