Back on track

Original button we have to duplicate

The scaled up button

Bottom component and vac-formed top component

Pieces of bottom component before assembly

So it's good news/bad news for my blog.  Bad news first (I always want the bad news first), I didn't manage to make my post last week.  Now the good news - (insert smug grin here), I finally completed my graded unit presentation.  This was my reason for missing the blog last week but it was worth it.  I had my presentation on Thursday and it went very well.  The tutors were very impressed by all the work I had done and told me I'm looking at an A grade! Hooray!  All the stress and hard work paid off in the end.

Staying on the subject of hard work brings me to my photos for this week.  One of the units we covered in college involved us producing a prototype of a product.  While this would normally be done for a brand new product we were working with an existing one.  The purpose of the exercise was to break the object down into its component pieces and work out how to reproduce it at twice its original size.  The object that we reproduced was an emergency stop button, the kind you would see on band saws and circular saws etc.

These photos are of the work in progress.  I always like to see photos of a work in progress and then see the finished product at the end.  It is a great way to learn how things are put together and to be inspired with ideas for other projects.  You can see the former that I used to vac-form the top section is one of the images above.

Another digital unit we are studying will involve us creating a 3D computer model of the same object.  I will post images of this once it has been completed together with the final finished prototype.