Climbing Wall (Done)

Last summer I decided to build a climbing wall in my barn. I had the space, a bit of money and like climbing so I figured it would be fun.

Research:
I used www.reddit.com/r/climbing to answer a lot of my questions about how to find holds for cheap, the type of wood to use ect.

I used a bunch of holds I bought off craigslist then order some from a variety pack online. The majority came as factory defects from companies that would sell them to me. I emailed about 20 different climbing hold companies about buying holds that have cosmetic defects for a discount. This proved to be extremely helpful as some sent me free samples and others offered nice holds at extremely discounted rates.

The Build:

The holds came! 

Results:
I found that using an old matress with foam pads underneath was plenty padding for the inevitable falls. I also found that setting climbing routes is actually pretty hard. Its trick to challenge yourself with a route that you cant do first try everytime but thats not completely out of your skill range. People who set route at rock climbing gyms deffinitally have that job for a reason

Lessons Learned:
If I had more time/ money (maybe this coming summer) I will expand because as is size is a bit limiting so the most I can do is 5 to 8 move routes. I also dont like that I wasnt careful with the support brackets on the frame I would have spaced them more evenly and checked because i think some of them are at an angle sort of parallelogram like. If I expand it Ill want to make the next section a bit steeper. This wall was about a -20 degree slope which I found is nice for endurance climbing but short boulding is more suited for steeper overhangs.

POE Marble Sorter (Done)

From Principles of Engineering 2010
These scans were taken from my engineering notebook over the course of 2 weeks. Myself and my partner had to construct an automated marble sorter including a computer code and all mechanical components. All non fisher technic parts had to be models on CAD so the project could potentially be replicated. I learned a lot on this project. I feel like we stumbled on a good solution to the problem but learned a lot about time management and the importance of prototyping/ scale testing before implementing ideas into a design.

 

 Final Result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-5-4Z254Yg

Hello World

I decided to start to documenting all my various projects as a sort of mechanical scrap book. So here's my first post! A bit about myself: I'm currently a student at RIT and study Mechanical engineering. I Like to build, take apart, fix and just tinker with things.