#1 Unstable Pen

As the pen burns and drags along the wood, it tends to wobble due to the spring platform, and the pen tip started to bend. To counter this problem,

• We added an additional ring of support around the heating pen to stabilise the spring platform. This helps to prevent the pen from wobbling as much when dragged along the wood, ensuring smooth burning for the ideal design.

• Additionally, the heating tip was shortened by cutting using wire cutters. The tip would now be less likely to bend when heated and dragged along the wood for prolonged periods of time.

As a result, the pen is more stabilised and heats along a more accurate path with higher precision, as compared to the distorted images produced before.

 

#2 Difficult to Monitor and Modify Spring Loader

Attaching the extra stabilisation cover encloses the springs, and we were unable to check if the springs are in the correct position and were unable to troubleshoot without disassembling the spring loader. To fix this,

• We made sure that the redesigned pen support had dimensions that were accurately measured with some leeway for movement.
• We ensured that the spring loader was aligned correctly, and that the glue is applied evenly such that the platform remains as a flat surface.

 

#3 Lack of Monitoring System for Troubleshooting

During our initial testing stages, we found out that certain issues such as uneven wood burning surface could result in poor results during burning (i.e. portions of the design not burnt into the wood). The code we had implemented was unable to perform troubleshooting for the designs, as the machine is not programmed to retrace its steps to perfect the design. Hence, a potential improvement could be:

• Installing a camera on the top bar of the machine, to provide live feed of the design that is currently being burnt.
• Train an AI model to help detect imperfections in the design, and program the machine to retrace its previous steps to ensure that the design is burnt properly.

 

#4 Difficult to Load and Retrieve Wood Planks Used

Our current prototype consists of an external box which lacks a bottom acrylic panel, such that the whole box can be removed to access the machine. However, this makes the loading and retrieving of wooden planks used to be difficult and troublesome. Hence, a possible improvement would be to:

• Add a sliding door in place of one of the side acrylic panels, such that the wood burnt can be easily retrieved, and new wood can be added in without much hassle.