The Never Ending Story

As the year in EDD (and highschool) comes to a bittersweet close and we prepare for our final presentation on June 17th, a small group looks to continue the Charlie project post-graduation. A small group, mostly consisting of build team members looks to continue the project, building a business plan, a go to market plan, promotional materials, as well as finishing and optimizing what we already have in the way of a product. We aim to launch a Kickstarter/crowd-funding...

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Congratulations to our Fellow InvenTeams!

Congratulations to the InvenTeams of Natick High School and Newton North High School on their achievements this year and their invitation to the White House Science Fair. It's always exciting to see other InvenTeams making the news, and we wish them the best of luck! (Sections from the press release) "Students from Natick High School and Newton North High School, both in Massachusetts, will travel to the fourth White House Science Fair to showcase their Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam projects to President Obama on Tuesday, May 27. The students will join...

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The Home Stretch

As our senior year is coming to a close, our final printer is beginning to take shape.  All of the acrylic has been laser cut and dry-fitted together, almost ready for completion.  On electronics team, we have been hard at work finalizing all of the wiring for the printer.  Using the wiring diagram we drafted earlier in the year, we have begun to connect all of the wires to the arduino shield and power supply.  After the completion...

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Sticking Together

Now that our base incorporates a puzzle piece design instead of using angle bars and bolts, we had to figure out the right glue to use to strengthen the structure. We started off by using acrylic glue. We had trouble with the consistency from the start. The glue was very thin and hard to control, and even pouring the glue into the application bottle was difficult. But after some practice we perfected our skill of acrylic gluing. We found that...

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An EYE Update

Recently, EYE has been making amazing progress! Check out these two videos below for what they have been up to, and stay tuned for more information on the upcoming EYES program on June 14th. Progress report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgHDwHY_1lI April 5th EYES Program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLw-owwj...

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Integrate (in't it great?)

As our project comes to its conclusion, it's time for all the teams to coordinate and build the final machine. The build team and electronics team are currently figuring out how everything will be placed inside the printer, so all the parts and devices will run smoothly. The power button has been soldered to wires, and we have successfully integrated a MOSFET (a type of transistor) into our power supply circuit, since multiple voltages will be used.As the school year starts coming to an end, we hope our project will be ready to print and present...

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Editing Software

The Software Team has been hard at work these past few weeks. Recently we were able to complete a settings editor page where the user can change printer features such as the printer name, user name, printer resolution and the layer depth. This page can allow the user to have further control over printing. Another task that we have been working on is the ability to have multiple templates and recent templates that the user can access. This can allow...

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The Final Printer

A little over a week after making the decision to go with the new design, the final Inventor drawings have been finished. The final prototype has a few major differences from its predecessor. First off, the projector is now pointed downward with the image bouncing off of two mirrors. To fix the issues with the last prototype the Z-table design has been overhauled, now being attached to a square rod that spans the length of the resin pool and slides...

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