Blog Entry 4

 Practical 5 (Egg Drop Challenge)

This blog will mainly be about practical 5.

The objective of the practical is to design and make a device that enables a raw quail egg to survive a fall from a height of 2 metres without any cracks. 

Design:

We took inspiration from a project online about egg drop challenge which utilise one of the strongest shape which is triangle.

Insert making it a shape of triangles, we decided to change the shape into squares.

First design

Second design

In the end, we decided to go with the second design as it would require less material which will reduce the time needed to print. Since the design looks like a porcupine, we decided to name our design project porcupine.

We decided to make 3 parts which includes the main body, the long sticks to fasten the two main body together and short sticks that will be attached on all four sides of the body. 

This was the first design of the main body:

Long stick fasteners:

Short sticks: 

However, after print the two main bodies and one long stick, we realised that since we made the sticks a perfect fit, it was impossible for us to insert the sticks inside the hole on the corners. Since we have already started to print the long sticks already, we decided to make another version of the main body which has large holes on the corners and cut the materials on the side to cut the printing time.

Main body design 2:

When we were printing this version of the main body, the printing nozzle had a problem which cause our print to be completed half way.

So we took measure what wasn't printed and extrude out the bottom to print the remaining part.

Remaining parts of the main body:

Due to time constraints, we didn't print the short sticks.

3D printing:

This is how we printed our design:

1. First we export all our 3D models as a STL file type and upload onto ultimaker cura.

2. Input the infill density and pattern to what you like. For us, infill density is 20% and the pattern is a tri-hexagonal infill. After that click slice and export it into a thumb drive as a gcode file.

3. Turn on the 3D printer

4. Place the filament into the box, cut the inserting end of the filament at a 45° and insert into the printer

5. Insert the SD card with the G-code file into the printer

6. Preheat the nozzle to 200℃

7. Select print and the G-code file to start printing

8. Wait for the print to cool and remove the 3D print from the bed 

9. Shutdown the printer by turning off the switch

Design assembly:

1. Insert the long stick fasteners into the corner.

2. Insert one of the remaining part of the main body 

3. Put the egg inside the hole and insert one of the main body

4. Finally insert another extra remaining part of the main body

Egg drop test:

With that, this challenge was a success as the quail egg did not have any cracks.