Windlass Part I: The Beginnings

The task: raise a 1-liter bottle of soda 10 cm above a 12-cm gap, using Delrin, our ingenuity, and a laser cutter. (Hopefully a laser cutter that doesn't billow smoke.)
The first designs:

The semi-final design and cardboard "looks-like" model:

The Delrin rods would form an axle spanning the two holes; they would be held together with various specialized bushings (E1 and E2 in the sketches above) to decrease deflection and function as bearings in the holes.
Although we initially chose 3 Delrin rods for the axle of the windlass, the cardboard model showed that 50 cm of rod would not be enough to easily turn the crank.  We were anxious about compromising the structural integrity of the model by having fewer rods--we tested the deflection of one, two, and three rods when pulling up a bottle and then switched to a two-rod design, which didn't seem to bend too much.
After further consideration, we decided to add another support across the triangular base, parallel to the trapezoid.  We used the cardboard model to test out two designs for the heat stakes that would hold together the trapezoid face and the wide base pieces, and discovered that pegs perpendicular to the trapezoid face would work best (as shown in the right-most sketch above).
With those few kinks worked out, we got the go-ahead from Professor Banzaert and dived into another SolidWorks adventure!