The class project from 1999 to 2006 was the design, fabrication, programming, and testing of machines to produce wooden six-piece burr puzzles. The raw material is wooden blocks of 0.75"x0.75"x2.25" size, and the machine will cut slots in one or two faces of each block as they are fed into the machine. After producing the six pieces needed for one complete puzzle, the machine starts the cycle over for the next puzzle.
In 2007 a new class project was started. The goal now was to produce an automation system for the assembly of brushless DC motors of the type used to power R/C airplanes. The 2007 and 2008 classes designed, fabricated, programmed, and tested machines to wind three phases on 22.7mm stator cores for these motors.
Winding motor stators proved to be an extremely difficult challenge in the lab, so a new project was selected for 2009. This year we fabricated aluminum bodies for high power LED flashlights on our Mori Seiki Duraturn CNC lathe, and then built assembly machines to assemble complete flashlights. The components of the flashlights were nose piece, o-ring, lens, LED/heatsink module, magnet ring, battery, and tail piece. In 2010, two Motoman MH5L assembly robots were added to the lab, and two teams are using them in the flashlight assembly automation system. One team is using pneumatics and a Cartesian robot for assembling the flashlights.