Breakthroughs -- hopefully

I've received some tremendously helpful work from the previous engineer on this project, Ari Munic. It appears there was a much newer revision of the design available than I had access to, which essentially is what I'd been slowly working towards -- except the model is finished, and best of all, many of the mechanisms have been tested.

With Dr. Eglash's approval, I've moved on to the prototype production phase far ahead of schedule. A few 4am Solidworks sessions have made me familiar with the software, and I've been able to make the few last necessary tweaks to the design. All that's left now is to submit vector files to the waterjet faculty, acquire a few bearings and bolts, and make a gear.

I've elected to produce the initial prototype using advanced methods such as waterjet cutters, vertical mills, and machine lathes. I understand that many of these tools are not readily available to our team in Ghana, but I've ensured that all parts could as easily be cut by hand with a file and a jigsaw, or similar more readily-accessible techniques.

Repair of the system with replacement parts manufactured onsite should be easy enough, and particularly, many parts cut on the waterjet (the one unit without any real equivalent in Ghana) are structural members which are unlikely to be damaged or wear out -- the most probably issues will revolve around the crankshaft assembly, which can be more easily replicated with a machine lathe and hand tools.

Below (Figure 6) is an image of the current (nearly final) (hopefully) design, which I should be able to begin production on this week or next. More to come.

Figure 6: Zany Penguin 1.2