Tag Archives: MAS.863

todo, DIY vending machine (countertop and oshw)

Like this, but with arduinos. and caffeine. and breadboards. and 1/64” drill bits. and nyancat-etched poptarts. Oh, and open source. And constructable for less than $600.

(I get to the whole build-my-own vending machine thing further down the page. Got a bit ADD).

Well, in other news, my 2.008 group did not fall over themselves to build a PoV yoyo. This is okay. I will just make one or two PoV (persistence of vision) yoyo’s manually then. (you, dear reader, have just been saved from a pages-long rant as I sulked over the last few days :P)

In other news, in MAS.863, it’s waterjet and shopbot week! I’m super-excited.

<3 3-axis mill. Shopbot r awesome~

(look, someone made a giant scrabble set using the media lab shopbot:

http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20110725-00

)
Mini projects this week:

[1] Shelving. make this (playatech’s plans — rec’d by fellow classmate novysan, who had fun with these at burning man. also rec’d “nomadic architecture” which sadly did not mean nomadic furniture like Walking Hexapod Racing Chair but rather furniture suited for nomadic humans)

http://www.playatech.com/index.php?deptName=03Bare%20Necessities&prodDesc=09Gear%20Gizmo

(aka shelving made from one sheet of $8 7/16” OSB plywood,

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100091344/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053)

Artsy furniture (metal): http://dornob.com/open-source-free-flat-pack-plans-for-laser-cut-furniture/
Styrofoam furniture: http://dornob.com/laser-cut-styrofoam-seats-solid-3d-polystyrene-chair-design/

[2]  I have lots of marble leftover from our clock class, which some people took proper advantage of while I merely used lasercutter and acrylic:

classmate’s AWESOME marble koi fish clock

mmm, instant noodles. aww. I miss my old room.

Oh right, where was I?

Arduino vending machines. That’s right. Make a DIY “open-source hardware” vending machine. Not interested in the electronics of accepting money and such (although that’s what everybody leaps to help with that, despite me explicitly stating I’m more interested in the vending mechanism).

Research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vending_machine#Mechanism
www.discapa.com/eng/download/manualt/MTMacSpiralE — coin mechanism and spiral set? not sure what it vended
http://www.vending.com/vending_machines/combination_vending_machines/combo/manual/
So they’re called “augers.”

from: http://www.vending.com/vending_machines/combination_vending_machines/combo/manual/

Found! mcmaster-carr “Dry goods screw conveyors”

http://www.mcmaster.com/#auger-conveyors/=ecttus

 ?!?!?! $677 is the cheapest one?! holy shiznatz that is out of the question.

Smexy pdf images: http://www.screwconveyors.com/profile2006x.pdf
mmm online worksheet AND considerations pdf:  http://www.kwsmfg.com/products/Screw-Conveyors.htm, http://www.kwsmfg.com/pdf/KWS-0709PBE.pdf . So I want “shaftless screw conveyor”
Ewww, this just ‘cos it has a pic of a screw conveyor used in a slaughterhouse: http://drycake.com/equipment/screening/downloads/Screening_Catalogue.pdf
Making Things Talk mentions it briefly… I wonder where I get a “big screw” (via libproxy.mit.edu): http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/book/hobbies/9780596510510/chapter-9dot-identification/301?reader=pf&readerfullscreen=&readerleftmenu=1

Interesting tidbits about vending machine locks: http://books.google.com/books?id=6tRcZtGADBcC&lpg=PA142&ots=KBqWOPS2Jk&dq=vending%20machine%20screw%20mechanism&pg=PA143#v=onepage&q=vending%20machine%20screw%20mechanism&f=false

NyanCAD: Correct motivation for learning CAD

I’m embarrassed to say how many hours I’ve wasted CADing nyancat paperweight for 2.008 now.
Off to go spend even more time producing CNC mill G-code using Mastercam for a machining appointment at 8am o__o

10/1/11 Edit:
Aha, so I realized (thanks to Steve, shop instructor extraordinaire) that there are many things wrong with my CAD. Sadly, I chose 5 mils spacing for the grid I used to trace nyancat. Turns out our smallest drill bit is 1/16” ( over 6 mils). Eheh. Also, I was planning on going 0.3” deep, which would take forever to mill out using 1/16”, as it can only go ~0.02” down per z-axis pass.

yea, milling fail.
that, dear friends, is the look of a lot of milling time.

I was halfway through the infuriating MASTERCAM too. Lesson learned: avoid branching as much as possible. See that right-most sprinkle that touches the cat’s head? Caused me no end of trouble!

Next step? Infinite Mastercam’ing. Instead of being a nice cavity with extruded nyancat, it’ll probably end up being closer to pedestal with a nyancat on top done in thin layers. I’ll also use a larger diameter tool to pocket out each shape and then contour with the 1/16”. So, first up, redo solidworks using 0.7” grid spacing (resize reference picture accordingly — btw, found under insert > sketch tools > sketch picture).

I’ll stick the files up on github sometime soon.

=====
Todo this weekend:
Saturday: Get ISP and PoV working, 6.131 lab writeup, MITERS misc. (project grants / safety / update website), PoV with partner 10am, Theater scene practice 2pm. Apply to summer jobs.
Sunday: 6.131 lab (1pm to midnight), 2.008 group meeting 7pm, watch a play (3 pm), go visit Sprout? (2pm)
Monday morning: lasercut cookies, document cookies and ISP.
Oh yea, speaking of ISP programmers, this week’s assignment was to mill ISPs using these desktop Roland Modela 3d mills:
So someone made an even tinier one that doesn’t need a USB connector (fits right into the slot): http://bardagjy.com/?p=628
Then someone riffed off of that and made one that has a break-off part for bootloading the chip:
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MAS.863/people/valentin.heun/2.htm

Ideas: PoV Yoyo, Press-fit food || Classes, Spring 2011

Mmmmm…. classes.
Started out with:
2.008 (Make a yoyo)
6.131 (Power electronics)
6.042 (Math for CS majors)
6.003 (Signals and Systems)
6.004 (Computation Structures)
Some HASS class

Now:
2.008 (Make a LED persistence of vision yoyo)
6.131 (Power electronics)
MAS.863 (How to make almost anything)
21M.611 (Foundations of Theater)
Possibly either 6.003 or 6.004, still.

In other words, I was ecstatic when I heard I got into MAS.863 and that flipped me in favor of not double-majoring in 2 and 6 (unless I decide to take an extra semester or something).

==mas.863==
Our first assignment:

Trying to think of interesting new ideas, I thought of pressfitting food (sparked by my interest in etching poptarts for nyancat poptart). The hunt for a suitable material is on…
Gingerbread recipe: http://homecooking.about.com/od/cookierecipes/r/blcookie111.htm
Other house-building person: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/arch-sass-0703.htmlhttp://cba.mit.edu/events/10.08.FAB6/Sass.pdf
Other materials guy: http://web.mit.edu/bin/cgicso?options=general&query=bredt came up with powder solution for 3d printing

(Other people’s projects, which overlapped with some of my other ideas:

General Prettiness:

===2.008===

In the meantime, I’ve also been ignoring the present day and contemplating the near future of 2.008. I think we’re supposed to be making paperweight designs or something, but my partner is a but hard to contact, so I’ve fallen back on daydreaming about LED persistence-of-vision yoyo’s. Doesn’t seem to have been done already, surprisitngly. And now for linkspam research:

PoV
Other products

DIY
Yoyo

2.008 Yoyos
In order of awesomeness / completeness of online documentation:

Youtube videos:
==misc.===
RFID tags idea: oohh, someone in a previous 863 class had a similar idea for not forgetting things. Or rather, exact 
passive, duct tape + magnet wire: http://scanlime.org/2011/05/duct-tape-rfid-tag-1/