Cost Update

By Kristine Abatay – Project Manager

The following figure is a table of the total amount spent in creating the final model for Spiderbot:

Two total values are provided in the far right columns. The orange column projects the total amount that was spent in completing the overall project. The green column excludes any costs spent on material that was a result of experimentation. For example, the initial mold that was created for Spiderbot’s tibia piece was not used for the final tibia pieces, so its cost was removed from the final green column total. The same goes for some of the costs included in the orange column for casting resin material. There are three breakout boards included in the orange column costs because one of the boards was damaged, as mentioned in a previous blog post.

The items that are listed with two prices, separated by a backslash, indicate that two separate totals were paid for those components. In the case of the casting resin, our 3D modeling and manufacturing member, Simon Abatay, managed to find coupons and deals, so those materials purchased in-store were much cheaper in price. This route of purchasing smaller containers of the material in-store, was taken because purchasing everything in bulk online would have been too expensive and would have resulted in too much excess material.

The total cost came out to be much larger than expected (the expected total was somewhere in the $600 range), but many things were learned in doing so. Much more money was spent in the silicone mold maker material compared to last semester because the pieces used in this semester’s Spiderbot were more three-dimensional and voluminous by nature, so naturally, more material was required. An innovative method for producing casted pieces with less material was also found because so much money was spent to fund the experimentation portion of manufacturing, so maybe this grand, albeit scary, total was a good thing.