Week 16 - lglik/Portfolio GitHub Wiki

12/10/18 - 12/14/18

Day One:

This was the first day of presentations to juniors about mechatronics, senior year, and the software development team. I will be writing about I decided to try adding neodymium magnets to the trees. Neodymium magnets are stronger than the ones I already have there and should also lose magnetism at a much slower rate. I added a cylindrical magnet to one tree and rectangular magnet to the other one. I then added as many filings as possible and kept the project running overnight again. A very large amount of filings could be put in this tree, however, there was not a whole of movement. Interestingly, the filings on the edge of the tree would move depending on the direction of the current in the adjacent magnetic trees. I decided to try to use an intermediate strength magnet. I found some cylindrical magnets that are not Neodymium but are still stronger than the original ones. These also created larger trees with more filings but there was almost no movement.

Day Two:

An interesting idea I tried out was to place a small slim neodymium magnet inside a column of soft iron. There wasn't any particular reason that this might work better, but it was a creative idea suggested by one of the teachers that at the very least should be interesting to experiment with. I started my day off with presenting to the Juniors again. I talked about my experience in Mechatronics, what senior year is like, and what the software development team does. I created such as setup, and, almost comically, when I tried to put the filings on the column, almost all of them fell off. Some filings stayed on the very top, but the sides of the soft iron column seemed completely void of any electromagnetic field. The filings that stayed on the top also did not move a whole lot when the electromagnet switched the direction of its field. While, this did not work very well, I was not particularly discouraged since I knew that a lot of trial and error would be needed to improve the project.

Day Three:

I started my day off with presenting to the Juniors again. I talked about my experience in Mechatronics, what senior year is like, and what the software development team does. Next, I tried out a new magnet which is the same magnet as the original one except it has a larger diameter. This magnet seemed to work somewhat better than the original one (more flings and greater movement). Another thing I tried out was to make a sheet of acrylic with a hole in it for the tree in that could be placed in the project to effectively raise up the floor of the project and the filings resting on. Doing so required clearing the filings completely out of the section of the project I was placing the acrylic on so that the acrylic could lay flat. I also had to break off the existing magnet with a wrench and then use a razor blade to scrape off all the glue off of the top of the electromagnet's soft iron core. I also had to use tweezers to pick the glue flakes out of the iron filings and only when this was done could I use superglue to attach the new permanent magnets.

The acrylic platform in the center of the project.

Day Four:

The new magnets on top of the acrylic worked very well. I had kept them running the whole night and they still worked well. They did get a little smaller and have less movement overnight, but it is likely that this would be the case with any magnets. Also, it is possible that when this project goes to a museum, an employee could spend 1-2 minutes each morning or maybe every few days making the trees look better. It is still not perfect or maybe as good as I would like it to be, but it was still much better than the originals. The conclusion was reached that this new magnet worked well enough that all of the old ones should be switched out. Also, it was decided that a larger piece of acrylic should be made to cover all of the trees and raise up the filings. Doing both of these things would also mean cleaning out all of the filings in the project while components are replaced.

Day Five:

I spent the whole day today emptying out the filings of the project. I recruited some other students to help me, but it still took quite a long time. I spent some time looking for a container to put all the filings in since I knew that whatever container I put it in would be ruined and that it would need to be something pretty robust to not break due to the abrasiveness of the filings. Eventually I found a container and used a combination of plastic spoons, brushes, and my hands to remove the filings. Eventually, I realized that I could move a magnet around to pick up the filings and then brush the filings off the magnet while over the box. By far the most time consuming part of this was small amounts of filings in corners and cracks that were hard to reach. I also discovered that what I thought was the floor of the area where the filings were, was not actually the bottom, but another piece of acrylic, and under that, even more filings!

The layers on the top of the project with all of the filings removed.