T-Minus One Week

We are one week out and have been in the lab all day.  We are here now as James and Professor Mason are debugging the program.  It appears as one of the accelerometers has died. 



Last week, the gear that attaches to the servo was machined to allow a recess for the servo arm to seat into. There was also a copper shaft made with a groove cut into it for the snap rings. Both gears also had grooves cut into them to allow an o-ring to be run around them in order to keep them positively seated.

The final design was printed and is installed on the board today.  We decided to bolt the sample container to the board in order to make sure that it does not move during flight.  The o-rings had to be lubed in order for the servo to turn the top.  All of the gears were attached to their components.  The o-ring grooves ended up not being used due to binding of the gears. 

The electrical team got all of the wiring done on the board.  All of the components were then installed on the board.  Additionally, a camera was added to watch to make sure that the servo turns during flight. 

Working on the drill press

 

 

Getting there...

 

 



The final board layout

Today, we were also able to test the whole assembly and everything held.  We put the board on the vibration simulator as the servo test program ran and everything went well.

Vertical testing

 

Horizontal testing

 

As the day/night wore on, we all got tired and so we had Professor Mason on the testing of the on-board camera.  As you can see, or rather hear, it was comical...

 

Testing on-board camera