Finally, the apartment floor is covered with cardboard clippings and glue stains. The mock-up process has begun!
We needed a proof of concept for our opening mechanism. All we needed for this was cardboard, straws, skewers, toothpicks, string, hot glue and duct tape. We had a rough idea for the mechanism beforehand. This idea was a rotating disc with several connecting strings equally distributed around the disc. These strings should be connected on the other end to rods that rotate around an axis in the bottom end of the rod. When the disc rotates, it pulls on the strings which pull on the rods, lifting them. Gravity pulls the rods back down.
The mock-up process was surprisingly straight forward. We started by making just one rod connected to a rotating disc. This worked well. Some jamming problems were fixed by adding space and reducing friction. Sideways forces were also eliminated by adding a loop for the string to travel through (the string makes a bend), so the pull on the rod would be straight. This was an effective solution.
We then continued by adding more rods to see how the system could handle this. Would the strings tangle? Would the rods be too heavy to lift? The answer was no to both these questions. The concept is considered proven.
What we can improve on for the next model is making sure that the rods don’t jam on their way down. Also, improving stability will be important, so the rods travel straight up without leaning.
Next, we will try to integrate this model with a motor. Also, we will try to integrate it with the “petals”. We will probably start by integrating it with one new system at the time.