Since we are able to achieve 4 complete oscillations on our mechanical logic last week, we move on to analyze the thermal and electrical data. Each spike in the upper portion of the graph represents the stop point of half of an oscillation. This graph shows that as current is applied to the actuator...

Last we Wenzhong and I successfully recorded 4 complete oscillations on the mechanical logic. This successfully concludes our goal to create a working mechanical analog of a oscillating system. 1080p 2.mov

This week Wenzhong and I successuffully completed our stage in testing our actuator in the testing system. We began to experiment with our actuator using our mechanical logic created out of polyester sheets. The bistable beam beam in the center is able to snap through on a single side. Next week we...

This week I worked on attaching the SCP actuator onto the testing system. To do so, four strings of SCP acututors are created from threads of length of about 35 cm, which is significantly longer than the threads we used before. In doing so, we hope that the stretch of SCP actuator would increase. Ho...

This week I worked on analyzing the strain of supercoiled polymer(SCP) actuator of a new nylon string. By using various weights and current during annealing process, I found that the strain during annealing process is about 10-15%. However, after annealing, the strain significantly reduces. In the n...

For this past three weeks, Wenzhong and I worked at designing and fabricating prototypes of mechancial logic. While we are facing many challenges in symmetry and fabrication time, we came up with two new prototypes. We are seeing a lot of improvement on symmetry on our new design. However, the symme...