For last week, I designed new pattern to allow easily adjustment of the distance between bistable beam and contact tab. I made one model for this design. And the feasibility was verified. I also manufactured many SCP actuators and assembled them into our ML II to test the functionality. As mentioned before, the uncoiling issue at the ends of actuator was still waiting to be solved. I had try to increase the annealing temperature for fabrication last night. It seemed it would be a potential solution for this problem. More test will be conducted during upcoming week. In addition, the conductivity between SCP actuators and contact tab was another problem to be solved. At first I used thinner conductive thread to form the conductive layer. But things were not going well due to the high resistance of the material itself and poor physical contact. This week I will come up with other methods to solve this problem.
On the other hand, I introduced new key words in make_output() function to automatically distinguish different kinds of 'tab'. And I also created new type of 'tab', in FingerJoint.py file, to able people to directly add finger joint into their designs. However, this new function did not really work yet.