Tom Holloway and Daniel Lloyd joined Cubik Innovation for their one week work experience from Colston’s School in Bristol. They were set the challenge of designing and building an unusual object that contained functioning electronics. The result was two fantastic 3D printed rockets that lit up.

Here is their diary from a fun filled week:

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Daniel Lloyd

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Monday

‍To start the first day of my work experience Tom and I had a quick tour of the office and met some of the staff. At 10am we joined the Monday Morning Meeting where the team discuss what they can improve on, project progress, upcoming projects and new staff and promotions. After the meeting we did some research on the business' past projects such as the Close Air Solutions. After lunch we met with Russell, who showed us a project of a steel lock that was wireless and could be unlocked with a keypad.

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Tuesday

‍Tuesday started with CAD Solid Works. First, we made a hollow cylinder and a cone shape. Tom and I decided to apply both shapes together and try and create a rocket. We made it by remaking the cone on top as the head, a cylinder for the body and three fins above the bottom engine, that should help the rocket stand. We decided to further this rocket and add a window, detail on the booster engine and a Cubik Innovation logo. After lunch, Paul asked us to research the part for a circuit for an embedded system for a safety flash.

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Wednesday

‍Today we worked with Charlie to make a circuit in a plug board for our project. We made an LED circuit that flickers to go under our rocket. In the plug board we used four LEDs - mine were green - and sexy cables that were used to link the resistors with Positive and Negative charge. We programmed the Microchip with the program called C to light the LEDs at different speeds and different delays. After we finished the programming, we started to plan how we will solder each component on the circuit.

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Thursday

‍On Thursday, we started the day by trying to print the first prototype rocket, but it came out too small and wasn’t the right size for what we wanted. After we printed the prototype, we increased the scale to 1.8 so the inside will be big enough to hold the circuit and button.

Once we got the second rocket printing, we started to solder the components onto the variable board. We had to make sure that all the LEDs were the same direction, and all the flying wires were connected properly.

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Friday

‍When I came into the office my 3D printed rocket was finished. The next step was to remove all the unwanted support and make the edges smoother. Due to complications after I had finished my variable board, my LEDs didn’t turn on because of the lack of space on the board for the wires to connect to. Shannon helped me redo my variable board and flying wires. My project was finally finished, and my rocket lit up at the touch of a button.

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‍Tom Holloway

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Monday

‍On the first day of work experience, we started the day with a tour of the office and an introduction to staff. Then at 10am all the staff had a meeting where we got an insight into previous case studies and looked at current and future projects. Promotions and new staff were also announced during the meeting. After the meeting, we then used the PC to study more case studies to understand what the business works on and produces. Later in the day, we worked with one of the members of the design team called Russell who showed us some of the projects he had worked on such as a wireless lock. Finally, to end the day we had an attempt at using 3D SolidWorks.

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Tuesday

‍Today, we continued using 3D SolidWorks and made a cylinder and a cone. We decided to combine the shapes we made to started to construct a rocket using the software we created the body using a cylinder and added a cone to the top. We then designed three wings and engraved a window as swell as adding an engine shape to the bottom. Finally, we hollowed out the inside of the rocket so that we could add a circuit inside later in the week. After lunch, we worked with Paul researching a previous case study to learn and try out how the business solved problems when a customer comes to them with a product idea.

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Wednesday

‍We started the day building circuits with intern Charlie. The circuits contained LED’s and resistors and gave us a view into how the electrical devices around us are wired up. Charlie then showed us the coding of a semiconductor chip to make the LED’s switch on and off making them flicker at different speeds. We applied this knowledge and had a go at coding our chips for our rockets light’s. We ended the day by planning our variable boards for our rockets with Charlie so we had a clear plan for Thursday on how the inside circuit of our rocket would be wired up.

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Thursday

‍On Thursday, we went back to 3D SolidWorks and printed off our rocket design as to get an idea of sizing and scale. When the printing finished, we realized our design was far too small for us to fit a variable board inside; therefore, we scaled our rocket by an increase of 2 and started the printing process all over again. Whilst the rocket was printing, Charlie showed us how to solder the components off our circuits onto our variable boards. It was then time for us to have a go soldering some components onto the variable board.

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Friday

‍We picked up where we left off Thursday and continued soldering components onto our variable boards. Also, the first rocket was finished printing, so it was time to print off mine. During this time, I finished soldering my components onto my variable board. When my rocket was finished printing, I removed all the unwanted support. Then, I attached a battery to the variable board and slotted a button to the hole we made in the back and soldered it to the variable circuit. The circuit was not complete, and I placed it inside my rocket and superglued the LED’S to the hole in the bottom of the engine giving the effect of flames coming from the bottom of the rocket and now it was finally finished.