Conclusion:
In this project, we had the goal of creating an automatic card dealer mechanism that would flick one card to 4 different players at a given distance. Throughout the project process, many changes and updates were made. To begin, we realized that trying to have our mechanism dispense at 4 different spots to a given distance was a bit too big of a task for the time allotted. Instead, we needed to simplify and focus on ensuring that we created a mechanism that could flick a card in a similar since to that of a human arm. Next, we redesigned our proposed mechanism from a four-bar mechanism to a six-bar mechanism. This insured that we got the needed motion and velocity required to allow our mechanism to flick the card out. In the end, we succeeded in creating a mechanism that reflected and performed the motion of an arm flicking a card.
Lessons Learned:
1. You may have to adjust your goals. Early in the project, we learned that trying to create a mechanism that would dispense to multiple people at a given distance would be too big a task for this semester. This was important, as it allowed us to focus on the more important task of creating a mechanism that flicked a card instead of focusing on too much at once.
2. Prototypes are important. Without having prototypes, we would not have discovered ways in which to improve our design or areas that we looked over where problems could happen. Furthermore, it provided us with insight into ways in which we were too idealistic. With the help of prototypes, we were able to create a suitable, sustainable, and working final design.
3. Don't be afraid to try something new. When designing our mechanism, we at first tried to stick to things we knew or pre-existing creations. However, we soon learned that there wasn't much to work on. Instead of allowing this to frighten us away, we took this as a challenge and decided to try something new. This allowed us to create a mechanism that had all the qualities we were looking for and best suited our project.
Future Work:
One problem we faced with our final design was that the motor was not strong enough to give us the torque needed to do the full motion of flicking the card out and retracting. If we were to continue in the future, we would like to find a motor strong enough to perform this action. Furthermore, we would like to accomplish our original goal and see if we could program our dispenser to deal cards to multiple people.