Project Overview

One of our sponsors, Michigan business Lettuce Duit, has many manually operated machines in their factory that are used for general purpose cutting of materials. Currently, workers are cutting pleated ribbon material to length manually by hand. Lettuce Duit would like to see an automated machine made that can efficiently handle this task. It is also required that the machine to be built be operable by individuals with disabilities (mainly seeing, hearing, and learning disabilities). Also, in terms of production volume, the machine should be able to at least match the production speed of the individuals who are currently doing the task by hand.

Sponsor Specifications:
- Machine will be manually fed material by the user initially, and the machine can then take over automatically with minimal aid from the user
- Machine can accurately cut material to a length of zero to seventeen inches, with 1/10 inch resolution
- Machine accessible to disabled persons
- Machine has simple user interface, with audio/visual feedback for the impaired
- Material to be cut will have width no greater than two inches
- Machine will be electrically and mechanically safeguarded
- Machine must be reasonably portable

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