Projectile Launcher Design Reflection

After having done several projects, I think, overall, instead of getting more confident about the design process, we are more used to how the design process function and take place in projects. Instead of looking at the design process chart and follow each step on the list, we are naturally following, or at least touch base on, each step. This is also one of the changes that I've experienced. During my first project which was the FTC robotics competition, our group's writeup was based on each step of the design process. And now, we are getting much less constrained by the steps, and have gotten more attentive to how each step relates to each other. And, i think, this is why the design process cycle is cyclical and iterative. For example, we might be constantly thinking of how we can improve our design during not only the brainstorm step, but maybe even the exploring possibilities step or the modeling step. We might also be making changes to our design during the CAD modeling if we realize something don't work out. And I think this is important because in order to make sure a design work out, we need to constantly be making changes and improving our design and going back to other steps necessary instead of being so defined by the steps being told to follow.

This project seems to be very similar to our last project but on a smaller scale. And since it's a pretty standard project, it should involve all the steps in the design process, so i don't think it is particularly more difficult or easier than previous projects. 

Bridge Failure Reflection

During the building process, I learned about how specific structure or additions to the bridge can make a big impact on the stability of the bridge. Especially when we later tested the bridge, I was able to see how parts of the bridge function in supporting the weight and the whole structure. During the testing process, I learned from what my peers were doing that distributing the weights properly can also be really important. Properly distributing the weight across the whole board and making sure to decrease the weight as the bridge starts to sway are crucial in determining the overall success rate of the bridge. 

For our bridge, since our structure involves the difficulty of bending the wood into a semi circle shape, there are many risks involve. It took us many tries and wasted many material to get the semi circle done. Although they were still not perfect, as the some small cracks in the middle probably affected the overall stability of the bridge, they were strong and thick enough to provide a decent amount of support. For the members of the bridge, when we were trying to cut it, many small wood pieces fall out and created many cracks and empty spaces within the wood, and this could be another factor that causes the members to break. I think the main thing that my group failed to do was jointing the parts together, because the two semi circles came out in different sizes so the members were not able to joint perfectly. If we were to do it differently, we would have calculate the measurements more carefully and be sure that the material (wood) were cut with more caution.