1-29-2013

Hey everybody, it’s Matt here again.

This past week the whole team has been busy working on getting the flow bench together so we can begin the testing phase of our project. A little over a week ago Dan and I went to Home Depot and Lowes to solicit for donations that would help us complete our flow bench. Though we weren’t able to get 100% of the materials we needed donated, both companies were very generous with the donations they made. Home Depot donated Oak Hardwood plywood, and Lowes donated a gallon of Bar Topper which we’ll be using for a finish on the top of the work bench. This week we managed to cut out all of the plywood for the bench as well as get several coats of polyurethane onto the panels. Our first attempt at creating the bench top ended up having some issues, so Forest and Jon worked on setting up a new bench top and burning some new sponsor tiles. The flow bench should be coming to fruition fairly soon, so keep an eye on the blog, and I or one of the team members will be keeping all of our readers posted.

Remember to check out our web page, and our Picasa photo album to see what we’ve been up to!

Good evening everybody!

It’s Matt from the OAVS Capstone group at the University of Maine. Winter break is winding down to an end with spring semester starting on the 14^th of January. Good news from the capstone team, we’re all back in the Orono area now and getting ready to finish fabricating and assembling the flow bench. Almost all of the parts and materials have been ordered and received at this point. The delayed shipment of metal stock that Forest mentioned in a previous blog post finally came in today which is great! The only things left to get are some sheets of plywood which Dan and I will be doing this week. While I’ve been playing the part of the procurement department over the past week or two, Forest and Jon have been working on fabricating the frame for the bench. While Dan was home he used his sawmill to make us some wood inserts for the bench top, which we’ll be laser etching with our sponsors’ names. Speaking of sponsors, Jon has talked to Mikah Barnett of All Angles Design and he’s agreed to donate his latest catch can design for testing. So a big thanks to Mikah and All Angle’s Design for the support, and thanks to all of our sponsors for all of your help, this capstone project is only doable because of your generosity and I know I speak for the whole capstone team when I say that. Well I think that sums it up for now. Take a look at the pictures below to see what we’ve been up to so far, and we’ll be checking in with the readers later on this week with some more updates!

Here we have the frame of the bench all welded together.

And here's what the first test run through the laser etching machine came out looking like...

Until Next time everybody!