Welcome to my website portfolio :)
Hello! My name is Jaci and I am a 16yo rising Junior from Southern California! For the past 5 years I have scraped the surface of the engineering world through school courses and robotics. Currently, I am in the Engineering magnet program at my highschool, which basically just secures me a spot in all the STEM based electives that I could take. In addition to spending all my freetime tinkering in the campus workshop, I love to challenge myself academically and physically. I am happy to be an AP/Honors student, IB Diploma candidate, and competitive circus artist. I rarely give myself downtime, and this summer I took this course to see if engineering was the right path for me.
A few random things about me: I love Taylor Swift and music, CAD, and am new to record collecting :)
For my entire time in high school, I have fortunately had some sort of board position. From drive team freshman year, to the leader of the mechanical subteam for my upoming junior year- I have grown as an engineer. FIRST Robotics as a whole has developed my understanding of the design process and exposed me to using power tools and CAD software.
VEX Robotics was the first engineering-type program I joined. At first I was asked to participate for my assets in sketching and notetaking, but progresssed my way to team president a year later. It opened the door for my engineering endevors, and I am forever grateful I decided to give it a shot.
I have been training aerial arts for almost 5 years now and love it. Before, I had danced for around 8 years, did gymnastics, cheer- the whole bundle; but none of it really stuck. I am new to competing in the sport and look forward to the new people and experiences I will have.
This first assignment really had me tap into the back of my brain and retrieve my programming knowlege. Our instruction was to create a website that contained a page with a proposal for the final project. I actually really am looking forward to the creative aspect of setting up my webpage just because it has been something I have wanted to do.
I based my website off of two different Bootstrap templates that had caught my eye. After downloading the files I picked and chose what aspects of each template I liked most and started to troubleshoot and personalize the code using Sublime Text Editor. I was satisfied with the overall backbone of the page and I was really excited to get to the customization. I changed the profile photo and background colors- even down to changing the hyperlinks and fonts. It took a lot of time betwewen troubleshooting with google and making sure everything ran smoothly.
Roughly following the instructions on the website, I modeled the "First Object", made an assembly, and set up a model for 2D printing (laser cutting). I had not used the mirror/pattern SOLIDWORKS feature in forever so it took a little bit to figure out the confinements I had to use. Theoretically the linear pattern function that I used is the same as the array feature in Fusion 360, duplicating a sketch. After I created my pattern and surface I wanted to cut out of, I just selected the bodies I wanted to keep solid.
One of the objects I modeled for this weeks assignment was a microservo from our kit of parts. I used calipers to get the measurements (mm) from the object and put it into SOLIDWORKS. I modeled both the servo base and one of the different servo attachments from the kit as well. Then created an assembly of the part together.
I also plan to use these servos from the kit of parts for my final project.
The second object I modeled for this weeks assignment was my jewelry holder. It holds both my necklaces and bracelets that I wear fairly often. I thought the shape of the object would be good practice to CAD; specifically because it would involve me creating 2 of my own reference planes.
At the end of class on 6/29/21, we the basics of Arduino and practiced compiling and uploading our first code sketch. This was the "Blink LED" example code shown in the video below.
After wiring a simple LED circuit, I wanted to take it a step further and add a push button. Without any code, when the button is pressed the LED will light up, and turn off when the button is released. I used the "button" pre-programmed Arduino examaple and tweaked it a bit to just tell it to turn on when pressed, and turn off if pressed again.
I have worked a decent amount with potentiometers between my Mechatronics class and through robotics- but have never seen one like this. I thought it was cool and had to play around with it. No code involved, just working with the reistance. From my multimeter, the reistance ranged from 0 (LED at its brightest) and around 10k ohms (basically no light).
For resistence I played around with parallel resistor circuits, where instead of linking 2 resistors to inscrease the resistance- you line them up next to eachother to decrease it. I use a 1m ohm resistor and a 470 ohm resistor for the purpose of a dratic difference. When both resistors are used, the LED shines brigtly (so bright that it messsed up my phone's focus). When I removed the 470 resistor (video below) the light dims a lot, because now its limited by the 1m ohms. The TinkerCAD simulation below my circuit photos helps give a more clear view of the wiring.
To calcuate the overal REQ (resistence) of the circuit, I used the formula (1/REQ = 1/R1 + 1/R2 •••).
1/REQ = 1/470 + 1/1m ~~ 469.78 ohms
For this weeks assignment I turned most of my attention to my final project, and less on building more simple circuits. Below, I have some examples of a circuit I played around with.
My main goal with this was to tinker with how much power these needed to run smoothly. I played around with the motors we used at the end of class, connecting one to 5V and one to 3.3V to see the differnce in the distance they spun. As expected, the one with less power spun for less duration. The smoothness of the spinning was not that effected, probably because there was nothing connected to the shaft.
For my plane, the speed at which the wings tilt (using servos) is less important than if they rotate smoothly. Doing some tests with the microservos and a prototype wing, the weight caused the servo to struggle. There were a lot of things that I did not take into consideration because I just wanted to get an idea of how the body of the plane would be set up. The position of the servo on the end of the wing could help a lot with the distribute of weight. The wing was made out of some foam board (linked in the FINAL section of my website) which was a decent amount heavier than the insulation foam I will start to use.
Working with for loops, I created a circuit that when the button is presssed, the LED will slowly dim anad then reach full power. The LED will stay at full power until the board is reset which is shown in the video.
This week I started to CAD an airfoil for my final project plane. This would later be made out of a thin light wood, maybe balsa, but for now I just wanted to get an idea of what it would look like. I started with some circles to get the rounded parts of the shape, then connected them with tangent lines to form the object. After extruding it, I made another sketch that would cut out a divit for the servo attachment. That way the attachment would sit in the part and be more stable, rather than it being glued on top.
This week we talked more about 3D printers, and luckily I have my own. It's nothing new, but it was given to me for free by my high school since they were upgrading to Ender 3 Pros. The old printers were given to Robotics Board members, since they had the skills to fix them up and use them for the team.
I got the pritner out from my closet and it took a few hours to fix up. It is a "Cube" brand printer from 10ish years ago, so there's not much I can do with it. There are limited things I can do- level the bed, resize the files; but nothing like nozzle tempature or print speed. It is hard to troubleshoot when a print fails or cannot print smoothly so that lengthens the time it takes to make a final product. I somewhat enjoy the challange.
Amazon link to printer
Printer Review Article
After fixing up the printer I decided to print a couple things before I started to print the attachment for my plane wing. One of which was this keychain I found the file for on Thingiverse for my friend Ryan. I just used some jumprings I had in a craft kit for when I liked making braclets a couple years ago.
After printing out the wing base, I noticed some issues with the sizing of the divit for the attachment. I made note of it and just sanded down the area to fit. Because it is just a prototype, I hot glued the wing base to the servo attachment- that way it could be cleaned off to be used in my final project.
For this weeks assignment, I brought out my Parallax BoeBot that I had gotten a few years ago. I had always wanted to work with IR Detectors and combine the sensors with a moving robot. I wired up one IR Detector and one sensor that would pick up the refraction of the IR emissions.
Using the Parallax IDE (similar to the Arduino IDE) I programed the robot to move forward until the IR was detected-- meaning it was close to a wall/object. I played around with it going both left and right:
I never found some time to set asisde to replecate the parallax systems with Arduino. I would imagine the concepts are the same and the code can't be that much diffent-- just translating between the two coding languages. I added documentation to my code if anyone was interested in replecating it on their own!
The majority of this weekend was spent working on my rc plane for the final project. [see servos use in FINAL]
[unfinished documentation]
For this assingment I followed the tutorial on how to wirelessly control an LED through a website. In class we learned how to do that locally with our IP addresses, and toward the end we were given the freedom to play around with Firebase, and I continued on to embed the ON/OFF button code given here into my website.
With the buttons above, my friend Ryan was able to turn the LED on and off even though he is 25 miles away. He did an amazing job- thanks for helping me Ryan :)
For this weeks assignment I worked with the wooden slab of laser cut parts from the kit. Following the tutorial on the website, I was able to replecate the sliding stage. It took a decent amount of troubleshooting to get the stage to move smoothly. From making the belt parallel with its attachemnts to the stepper motor, to the screws holding the bearings into place, the factors for error were endless.
I first had built the mechanism like the pictues shown, with the grooves of the base peices facing away from where the motor was mounted. After testing and reading the troubleshooting section on the webpage, I decided to switch the bases around so the grooves holding the belt into place were on the side closer to the base of the motor.
My inspiriation for this comes from my facination with robots and small moving vehicles. I wanted to combine my interests with something that I have not worked with before- aerodynamics.
For the amount of care, and time that I have put into this small, troublesome plane-- it deserves a name. There are a lot of associations with the name Olivia. First off one of my favorite artists, Olivia Rodrigo. Next, in my favorite TV show Narcos, Olivia is the name of the baby that Steve and his wife took care to. Olivia also stems from latin roots, and olive trees-- meaning peace (ironic considering the chaos it has caused).
Anyways-- meet Olivia :)
Resources:
Engineered Mini Flying Wing
The Aerodynamics of Flying Wings
Airfoil Calculator
Center of Gravity Calculator
Wing Cube Loading Calculator
Purchased Supplies:
(1) Elmer's 1/2" Foam Board, 20" x 30"
(1) Original Gorilla Glue
(1) Rigid Pink Foam Board Insulation Sheathing, 1" x 2' x 2'
(1) 36" Balsa Wood
(1) 24" Basswood
Fiberglass
Autopilot
(1) EMAX ESC
(1) Propeller Motor
(1) Propeller
(1) Lipo Battery Pack
Carbon Fiber Rod
Kit Supplies:
(2) Microservos
Other:
(1) Super Glue
(1) Wood Glue
(n/a) Packing Tape
(2) Paper Clips
Mod Podge
Acrylic paint
Cardstock
Rubberbands
TBS Tango II Controller
iNav Flight Software
When I first started brainstorming for this project, I did not want to build an ordinary plane. Don’t get me wrong, commercial planes still look sick– but I wanted to challenge myself to make something different. My design started with a flat wing pattern. Kind of like a stingray shaped plane.
My first prototype consisted of foam board, tape, and a servo from our kit of parts. I just cut out some random estimated shape and taped it all together-- just to see how things would function.
As I continued to research, my searches led me to RC Planes and I fell in love. My first sketch was simple. 2 wings, and a center box for the electronics.
Using the websites I linked above, I was able to realistically simulate my plane digitally. Estimating its wing span and weight to calculate just how big I wanted to make Olivia. The smaller the plane, the harder to fly.
The airfoil website was especially helpful for the design of my wing. After getting the measurements of the entire surface, I wanted a thinner airfoil-- for the purpose of being able to do tricks and overall making the plane lighter.
I began to build the main body (fuselage) out of a balsa wood to keep the plane light. I cut the peices by taping a printed template on top of the wood, and since balsa is soft, I just cut it out with an exact-knife. After sanding the edges smooth and flush with the templates, I removed them and glued the wood together with wood glue, linked above.
After everything was dry, I cut a peice of thin flexible foam to act as the base of the plane. It was light and the electronics mounted inside did not need much to connect to. Thanks to my friend Bryce (who is holding the fuselage in the picture) for letting me work in his workshop. The foam looks wet because wetting the surface helped the glue cure faster.
While that was drying, I used the same thin foam and measured out my wing surface area using the measurements from the calculator.
Next I used the hand held hotwire cutter that Byrce had made a while ago to 'bubble cut' the insulation foam my final wing would me made out of.
I used the foam template that I had cut earlier to trace the wing shape onto the insulation foam. After bubble cutting, I was left with some pretty rough edges that needed to be cut more precicely.
Using a second hotwire cutter, this one mounted perpendicular to a wood slab for a straight cut, I was able to get those straight edges. I took a ruler and pinned it in place right up next to the lines I marked on the insulation foam and slowly moved the foam through the wire-- keeping it flush with the pinned ruler.
After finishing cuts on all four sides, I used some 220 grit sandpaper to smooth the edges of the two peices of foam. It was super important that these two were identitical to eachother (for the flight consistency).
I then measured a line down the center of the 15cm side of the wing. Then I took some airfoils that I cut out of the same balsa wood as before, and pinned it down the center. I left some of the airfoil sticking out at the bottom because that would make it easier to cut with a the hotwire in the next step.
Using a wire screwed to the end of the table, I was able to get a subtle angle on the wing. I lined up the insulation so that the 15cm piece with the airfoil was furthest away from the end with the nail (as seen in the video below). Then by sending current through the loose wire, I was able to drag it on top of the wooden airfoil template and smoothly cut the foam. I repeated this step top and bottom on both foam slices.
After sanding the tops and bottoms of those wings (to remove any irregularities in my cuts), I taped the wings on and set up all the electronics. This was also important because I needed to figure out if the center of gravity (cg) of the plane was in the correct spot. If not, the plane would not be able to fly and I would probably have to start over. I also added the wing flaps to the backs of the wings. These flaps are what actually change the position of the plane!
After measuring, I glued and pinned them to the sides of my fuselage. In addition to the origional balsa wood base, i added an inch layer of insulation foam to the airfoil sides, and another balsa wood airfoil to finish it off. The pins would temporarily hold the wings in place while the glue had time to dry.
Without the wings, this is what the base of my plane looks like with a rough electronics placement. The servos mounted to the balsa wood on the side using hot glue; the autopilot in the center, esc by the back, and lipo battery in the front for nose weight. The propeller and motor wwould be mounted at the back behind the esc.
Now that the basic shape of the plane was done, it was time to start soldering the electrical components. I started with the Autopilot (left) which needed to be hooked up to a power/ground and to both the servos I will be using. I then soldered the Electronic Speed Control (ESC) (right) power/ground to the autopilot.
A closer look to how the plane flies: When the servo horns are moved back and forth, they pull the flaps with them creating a tilt when the plane is in the air.
After installing the esc, I took a soldering iron and just melted a little divit in the foam for it to sit in just so it is not sticking out. I used a combination of balsa and basswood to make the propeller mount, alternating the grain of the woods so it would not split when I screwed in the bolts.
The electronics are coming along really well and there were only a couple more things I need to add.
I soldered the signal to the autopilot and now the plane is ready to fly. It needs to stick vertically up to be parallel with the signal readers on the controller.
But first I needed some practice. I played some RC Place 3, which is basically a free flight simulatior that I found on steam. I hooked up the controller to my Mac with a usbc cable and altered the controls to fit what I would be using for my plane.
Everything was going so well! That was until one of the wings broke off during a test flight.
I was not suprised this happened. I was more suprised that the plane lasted this long without any sort of support going through the wings of the plane. I used a carbon fiber rod and made a divit through the underside of the plane using a soldering iron for the foam and a dremmel tool for the wood base. I made sure the rod was perpedicular to the fuselage and it was running through the center of gravity of the plane. With some hot glue, the rod stayed securely but I added some packing tape on top just to be sure it would not fall out.
The last practical thing I needed to do now is protect the electronics. This does not take much since forces should not hit the plane from above-- so I settled on a strip of cardstock paper. I used 2 pins and some rubber bands to secure the opening of the flap, and superglued the underside to the base of my plane.
To further protect the wings, I painted 3 layers of mod podge on them. This would help it not get dinked by other flying objects in the air as well as act as a base for any designs I want to paint on the wings in the future! -- Oh I also added some googly eyes :)
And just like that- Olivia!
For software, everything was done through iNav! Set up was really simple and I just had to callibrate the autopilot so it could sense what orientation the plane was in.
First glide test:
Most recent glide test:
Wing break:
18s flight test:
1.5m flight test: