12-13th January (Build days 1-2)
Over the weekend, we started cutting out some of chassis parts and fitting them together. I started badly by cutting the side plates 20 mm too tall. Lesson learned, measure twice cut once and all that. However, after a couple of days we had something not entirely dissimilar to part of the CAD model:
DSC_0575.jpg
Most of this time was just figuring out how to cut and fit the parts together accurately, or at least accurately enough for the thing to function. Despite checking, quite a lot of things ended up being slightly the wrong size, or attached in slightly the wrong place. "Slightly" here may be a bit of a charitable word to use. Although we had some bits after this weekend, we spent most of it experimenting with assembly techniques.

We did all the the fabrication and assembly at Nottingham Hackspace, by the way - there’s a great selection of tools there so we had access to a pillar drill, bandsaw, disc sander, etc… If you're in the area and haven't been, check it out!

I was then off away with work for 3 days. I ordered a few bits from HK and RS but couldn’t do any real work.