New Year New Design.

Along with ringing in the new year, our team has been busy revising our lift system design. Members of our team have been working closely with one of our mentors, Mr. Tom, to develop a new way to support the weight of our platform.

Early last week, Mr. Tom introduced an idea to replace the current supports with a sort of steel roller system. The original design for our lift system involved two metal support bars, one on either side of our lead screw, to support the weight of our platform. While using the CAD program to model this design, we noticed that the beams bent under the weight of our platform. This posed an obvious concern, as it could compromise the safety of our lift. 

In order to eliminate this problem, we have decided to replace the support bars altogether. Instead, our lift system will have steel rollers that slide up and down the back of our lift with our lead screw. These rollers will be shorter and stronger which will eliminate any bending we might have experienced while still effectively support the platform. With this design, the rollers will greatly increase the amount of torque the lift will be able to produce. Our team will also be using less, more cost effective materials. 

Moving forward, we will continue to finalize our prototype and organize the logistics for the mid-grant technical review.