On Tuesday Anisha and I got together to work on putting something together to take to the Saturday trial. We started by meeting up at Cassie's house and then heading over to the local Orchard Supply Hardware store and looking for materials.

We came loooking for parts for the hopper and scoop. We already had in mind plans for how we were going to make both things but it was still HARD to find the right materials.

For the hopper we planned on using ten volumetric tubes attached to a plywood board to measure out ten bags with six pounds of sand each. The bags would be attached to the ten tubes by cable ties so we could fill ten at once and then release them all at one time.

We already had a scooper which we had put together that weekend and tested at the trial. We hoped to improve on that design by widening the area through which the sand could fall through.

In some of our experiments at home we noticed a lot of sand getting stuck because the hole was too small. It seemed like a lot of space was being wasted.

After searching through Orchard, we came out with: lots of 3" PVC pipe, some plywood boards, L brackets, siding, circular wooden boards, and an air conditioning adapter.

After working at Anisha's house for 2 hours we ended up with 9 15" PVC pipes. We had hoped to get some sort of volumetic weighing system down by measuring out 6 pounds of sand in PVC pipe.

We then measured the pipes to the appropriate lengths and then cut them, ending up with one less than we needed.

Unfortunately our progress was stopped at the pipes. We did not have the right tools to cut the scoop or the plywood correctly without it cracking or splintering. We were still happy that we got the pipes cut as we were sure we would find some use for them.