For this lab I designed an idea for a final project and rendered it in Fusion360. Since the class has been made remote, I won't actually be building this, but I can provide steps for how I would have built it in this post.
I was inspired by the current quarantine situation to build something that could be useful in a case where I would need to be isolated from the rest of my household. My room is on the second floor, and since I'm the only family member with a room on the second floor, the entire floor would become my domain. But if I did have the virus, my family members may be at risk from having to come up the stairs to deliver things such as food personally. So I thought, why not make a mini elevator that I can raise and lower so that stuff can be delivered to me from below without having to come into close contact with others?
I came up with a simple design for a mini elevator, which would have been made out of 17" x 17" x 0.25" plywood held together by wood joinery techniques and wood glue. For the wood joinery, I was thinking to implement secret finger tenons for the main body. It would have had two levels separated by a piece of wood joined at the middle with either a slot joint or a catch tenon. The first level would be fitted with a circular piece of plywood that serves as a bounding platform for a dinner-sized plate. The second level would have horizontal bounding platforms and a 1"- high edge barrier that can keep a sideways canteen in place and prevent it from rolling out. I've decided that closing off the elevator like a cabinet wouldn't be necessary, as the box should be stable enough not to sway dramatically during ascent.
Bottom level for food, top level for canteens/mugs. Of course, it should be able to carry other objects besides food as long as they fit in there
The elevator would be pulled up using a rope pulley hoist with a mechanical brake. Since I would not be hoisting up extremely heavy objects, I believe this method would be the easiest and most cost-efficient way to implement it. The only renovation required would be to drill a hole into the ceiling and stick an eyebolt there to hold the pulley hook.
The elevator would be attached to the pulley system by a 3D-printed loop attached to the top with screws. If I were to actually try to make this, I believe I would have spent the most time on this particular segment, since my plan would have been to design grooves in the 3D-printed rope loop that could fit the screws and lock it in place on the top of the box. This would have had to been done very carefully, otherwise the elevator could come loose and fall. And so perhaps I would have searched for several suggestions for implementing this part.
Mini elevator modeled in Rhino and the rendered version. It would be hoisted up manually by a rope and pulley system