It feels like Christmas time. I spent the afternoon opening boxes and pulling out pieces for the Alpha prototype. It is now officially under construction! See the photo below.
[I put a few more pictures at our Instagram account. More to follow as assembly continues.]
But there is good news and there is bad news.
Bad News
You always have to start with the bad news, right? The delivery of several parts has been delayed and some of the parts that did arrive were manufactured incorrectly. We put tolerances on the drawings for a reason, folks! Grrr. The test bench prototype won’t be ready until middle of next week at the very earliest. Likely later.
Good News
The parts that did arrive, and were manufactured correctly, fit like a glove. Assembly has been incredibly straightforward (once we figured out which pieces went where; there’s no instruction manual yet) and this prototype already looks infinitely better than the proof-of-concept that I built in my garage. While this prototype won’t be market-ready I’m pretty sure it’ll be easy for me to show it off with pride. This will be a major step forward in the development of this product.
Overall very exciting, but with a bit of cringing.