Semester B - Week 9: Breaking Things (for Progress!)

🛠️ Refining (and Redefining) the Collapse

This week, we continued to experiment with the robot’s collapse mechanism, aiming to make it more expressive and impactful. We also reattempted adding the vibration movement – still a work in progress!

🔧 Testing Vibration Placement

We tried to find the perfect spot for the vibration — we placed it on the top, the bottom, the side, even attached a stick to it and connected the stick to the legs... None of these options gave us the reaction we were looking for, so we decided to try bringing the vibration directly from the motors.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/6ff51f_8dba16e1214547c9bde3be991dd70378/480p/mp4/file.mp4

Vibration test with stick connecting to robot legs.

🔩 Sensor Holes… and an Unexpected Breakdown

We tried integrating holes for the sensors into the structure, but unfortunately, the attempt didn’t go as planned — the entire robot fell apart during the process. Definitely not our proudest moment, but part of the journey!

💡 Creative Troubleshooting

Even after the robot broke, we took it as an opportunity to think creatively: how can we improve the design moving forward? We’re now rethinking structural integrity with flexibility in mind. Stay tuned to see where we land next.

🔜 What’s Next?

Next up: testing vibration directly from the motors, running usability tests, refining the collapse motion, and continuing work on the final script.