Pill Cutter - Progress Blog 6: 2/19/2022

Hello and welcome back to our team's second blog post of 2022! We are the University of Houston's Mechanical Engineering Capstone Team 35: Progress Blog 6.

First off, we would like to talk about the work our team has conducted from February 5th to February 19th, 2022. Thus far, the team has requested all the parts for the device to be 3D printed. The team has also figured out the number of pills to use to validate the device's efficiency and accuracy with advice from Dr. Chang. For common pill shapes and small pill sizes, the team will perform at least 30 trials of tests for each pill to collect more accurate data on the device's performance. As for rare pill shapes, the team will perform five to ten trials as evidence to justify our cases. Additionally, the team will contact Dr. Hammami in order to be able to use her lab to determine the hardness of the pills we will use during the validation tests.

Next, let's address a recent challenge the team has come across: the fabrication of the device. The team has already used a vast amount of the 1 kg filament provided by the 3D printing lab. During the first 3D print of the device's critical parts, the team submitted an outdated version of the device model. Because of this, the team is required to purchase additional filament for all the remaining components of the device. The team has contacted the 3D printing lab to resolve this issue.

Below in Figure 1 is the 1 kg spool of orange filament that the team will provide to the 3D printing lab to fabricate the device's container. The remaining filament after the fabrication process will be used to create the other parts as needed.

Figure 1: 1 kg spool of orange filament ordered

As for the working period between February 20 and February 26, the team will continue to work with the 3D printing lab and Dr. Chang to fabricate all the remaining components, including the blade to be produced from a stainless steel sheet metal, shown below in Figure 2. The deadline for the device to be fully assembled and ready for validation is February 27th.

Figure 2: Stainless steel sheet