We collected the 3D printed parts of our shutter and started to assemble it. Unfortunately, as the 3D printer was unable to print the parts precisely, the dimensions of the screws and their holes were not accurate and hence incompatible. We had to manually adjust the diameter of the holes by using a screwdriver to widen them.
We also started to think about how to build our ramp, which would only allow pipette tips that are oriented upright to enter the space in the ramp and slide down to be clamped. We first experimented with cardboard by using some cut-up pieces of cardboard strips as the sides of the ramp.
Process of figuring out how the ramp is supposed to look using cardboard.
After that, we cut up Failed Prototype 2 into rectangular pieces to try and observe how successful the ramp idea would be if we used PLA (the material used for 3D printing) instead of cardboard.
From this, we found that because PLA is smoother than cardboard, sliding the pipette tips down the ramp using gravity would be more successful if the ramp was made of PLA. Hence, we decided to design a 3D model of the ramp using Autodesk Fusion and send it for 3D printing.
Screenshots from the .stl file of our sixth prototype.