June 13

Considering today was the last day to work on our project and also the day it is due, we can say satisfactorily that we did everything else regarding building. What does that include? one not knowing us may ask. For starters, we made a platform for cards to be launched off of and also a place for our motors to be mounted. Needless to say, we mounted our motors. We also created a top and bottom of our launcher our of foam and made a hole for the switch. We put electrical tape around all our wires for fear they touch each other and turn stuff on when not bidden to do so. We made minor adjustments to our ramp, meaning we made the ramp less steep. In the end, IT WORKED!

June 12

We made final edits to the box and we resoldered most of the connections within the circuits because a lot of them were coming lose. We also got 4 new LEDs and put them into the circuit on a series circuit. We also put electrical tape around the buzzer to make it less noise.

June 08 (Oops)

Oops, forgot to post what we did for this day. Anyways, we only had one hour to work today and consequently, we didn't get much done. We did succeed in finding a way to shoot our cards about a foot and we're proud of it. We also convinced lots of people that our gun shot flamin' hot wax at people. People are pretty gullible nowadays, no wonder the government gets away with so much. Since one of our candles exploded and hit Carter in the face, we had to melt a new candle onto the motor.

June 11

Today we soldered our motors to our switch and made it work. The motors are on the same switch as our buzzer and LEDs so that every time we "test" our motors, people get annoyed at us. We also perfected how the cards will be shot out. We decided that the motors will be connected to the candles and will be put on top of each other. The cards will be fed into the gap between the candles and get shot out. Also our connection with the LEDs died. That's a bad thing, because now we have to go through each one and make sure they're not burned out. The last thing we did was make it so that our ramp is perfectly flat. We only killed 12 people today. :3
(o'.')==0)o'^')o

June 07

Today, we connected 7 LEDs in parallel, 3 on one side and 4 on the other. We also had another path that connected to a buzzer so we can annoy the crap out of people. We also attached two candles onto our two motors so we can shoot cards. We also learned that we cannot attach 18V onto the motor, or the candle will explode. We learned that the hard way. We are prepared to attach a switch to our LED and buzzer circuit. Tomorrow, we have to create our motor circuit.

Catching Up May 31 - June 06

Thursday, May 31 (Stephen):

We both conceptualized our playing card shooter. We made several drafts and decided on the one that we that we thought would be easiest to make and work the best. The current idea is one that involves a belt that drags cards along at high speeds and shoots them through a slot. Carter drew the sketch of what we want the shooter to look like; I drew the circuit diagram for the current idea. We also made a very loose calendar that we probably won’t end up following.

Friday, June 1 (Stephen):

The plans that we made yesterday called for a belt of sandpaper. So guess what I did; I went to Home Depot and bought not 1, but 2 belts :D So we started to make our belt and realized that the dowel couldn't spin the belt like we thought it would. So we cut apart the belt, cut a little piece off, taped the belt back together inside out and shoved it inside the other belt. That way, we had a double-sided belt of sandpaper. We tried to put the dowel inside that, and it still didn't spin. We ran out of time and had to give it up for the day. But before we packed up, we glued three dowels together to let it set overnight in hopes that three would work better than one.

Monday, June 4 (Stephen):

The glue set and the dowels were near inseparable. We put the three dowels through the belt and tried to spin it, but it failed. We thought about our problems and realized that wrapping the three dowels in sandpaper might provide enough friction between the two surfaces to spin the belt. We tried - and failed (with a "ph"). So we sat down and drew new plans. The basic shape of the thing was the same, but we had to change the way the cards were shot out. We decided that instead of a belt, we would have two dowels stacked on top of each other spinning in opposite directions, so when you feed a card in, it eats it and shoots it out. Pretty intense stuff huh?

Tuesday, June 5 (Stephen):

Today, we started to build our frame because we were too lazy to find a pre-made container we could use (We're just that lazy). We started with the ramp which would feed the cards through the dowels. I'm sure Ms. Mohr is glad that we used math to figure out the angle and distances of our ramp. After that was all done, we had to make the back of our gun and the sides. We drew all this out (which took forever because we had to keep thinking and revising our idea throughout the process) onto the wood and we cut 'em out. We glued all our pieces together and left them to set overnight again.

Wednesday, June 6 (Stephen):

Lollipops! I mean...Today we saw with dismay that our wood had been moved while it was setting, so we had to cut the bits that were too long. We glued the sides of the entire gun to the back and let it set overnight. Carter came up with the idea of using cylindrical erasers instead of sandpaper wrapped dowels. So we went on the prowl for erasers, but decided that we would use candles instead. Tomorrow, we have to glue on the ramp to the back of our gun and let it set before we can do anything.