TeamClantonTeam4.docVIP

Team Clanton Team 4 Final Report May 9, 2006 Gerry Chu Rich Juchniewicz Jonathan Morales Sarun Soongsawang Opportunity Reengineer the manually-operated garden pruner to reduce the amount of grip force and repetition on the hand for sufferers of arthritis and tendonitis. Solution A battery-powered pruner that cuts plant limbs when a trigger is pressed. Executive summary The Clanton pruner is a motorized, battery-powered pruner for plants. It is designed to cut live growth without the user having to exert any force. The target audience is retirees or people with some physical disability who used to garden and prune often, but now cannot because of arthritis or decreased hand strength. Our research revealed that people often have sore hands from manually pruning from 10 minutes to 1 hour. This prevents gardeners from enjoying their healthy, beautifully shaped plants. At the end of phase 2, our team had decided to make an automatic pruner whose energy came from a hand-cranked spring. At the beginning of phase 3, we decided to go with a battery-powered design because it requires no physical exertion and also is simpler to design and manufacture. As a downside, the battery needs to be recharged. Many different mechanisms for driving the blades were considered. A rotary slot linkage mechanism with a pin that rides in a slot was chosen for the final design. A fully-functional prototype was constructed that successfully pruned a variety of branches. One of the lessons learned from the prototype is the need for a reverse switch in case the motor stalls on an especially thick or tough branch. The directional switch as three positions: forward, reverse, and center (like a drill). Placing the directional switch in series with a power switch prevents children from accidentally injuring themselves. Several changes for the sake of ease of manufacturing were made from the beta prototype to the final version. In particular, the final version has an injection-molded “exoskeleton” she