Bottle Opener, Post 5

Overall Process and Conclusion

We documented our process and progress with each picture. Through the foam core models and electronic design, we were able to print our original prototype, test it, and decide what to improve upon. Our original model was designed based upon physics and what we thought would work, but we then had to revisit the drawing board. Our decisions on the modifications to make were based more upon physics than the first model, and also upon better knowledge of the material we were working with. We concluded that our original model would work very well, given that E (Young's modulus) was greater, such as what is characteristic for metals and other strong, rigid materials. However, the Delrin material refocused our attention on changing force and length. We modified our design to best exploit these factors to our advantage, and created a bottle opener that consistently worked in practice but did not work immediately during the test. If we had more time, we would have liked to explore the benefits of an intermediately sized handle, to see if we could balance the tradeoffs of longer length and torque with force and a shorter length for an optimal degree of deflection.