03 - Lessons Learned

One of the biggest lessons the team learned was the complexity of interfacing systems and the importance of checking the CAD thoroughly to try and catch any interferences before the assembly begins. There were a few parts of the prototype that did not accurately line up during assembly, and without a longer period to work on the project, we had to adapt with less elegant solutions than if we had caught the interferences beforehand. This also ended up hindering our final cam following mechanism, as an interference that we were unaware of caused the slider crank to interface the cam much later than expected.

This goes into another lesson and tip for future groups, which is to build your mechanism with contingency built in. Our housing structure ended up interfering with our linkage mechanism, but the system was designed in a way where, even if that section of the housing structure was removed, the structure still stood with no detriment to the function of the mechanism. Similarly, one of the holes for the spring by the whetstone did not line up on all the structures, so the dowel we cut for it would not go through without preventing the movement of the whetstone in the vertical axis. However, since we had three other axles that did line up, the fourth was unnecessary to still function. If possible, especially on projects with shorter timelines, building preliminary prototypes with these easy contingencies like repetition and excess support can help you in the long run in case you need to make final engineering adjustments to get the prototype to work without having to redesign and rebuild everything on a tight timetable.

The last big lesson we learned as a team is to strive and build earlier before the deadline, since issues in the initial prototype always come up. This is a lesson we learned the hard way, as we ran out of time to make some fixes to our system that could have greatly improved the functionality of our prototype.

All in all, the biggest tip we could give to a future group is to have backup plans. Our original design was to have a linked four-bar and slider-crank, but with the complexity of that design and getting the motion to match the profile of the knife, we had the backup to go with a cam follower in case we realized we would be unable to finish the desired prototype by the deadline. Because we had the backup design of a cam follower, which was much easier to design to show the functionality of the system, we were still able to produce a product that showcased the motion we desired.

We would love to acknowledge and thank our Teaching Assistants for their guidance throughout the project: Sid Desai, Victor Guzman, and Ashwin Hingwe. We would also like to specifically thank Victor and Ashwin for opening up the Texas Inventionworks for us far beyond the normal hours the night before the project was due so that we could continue to manufacture our parts late into the night. We would love to thank our professor Rohit Varghese for teaching us this semester and encouraging us throughout our project. We would also like to acknowledge our honorary sponsor, Sysco Imperial Long Grain and Wild Rice Blend, for making a cameo on all three of our build projects this semester.