Now that the team had a plan and had a new selection of parts, they went about building the first working prototype. This was fraught with challenge because there seemed to be no good way to filter the coffee out of the air that was being pumped out of the ballon. Either the filter was too restrictive causing the pump to struggle to pull the vacuum quickly or the filter let the coffee grounds through which proved to be damaging to the fragile air solenoid that would switch from pulling a vacuum to grasp the object or blowing the air back into the ball to release the object. While no solution was found to this problem, it was set as a top priority for the next meeting. Nonetheless, the team was still able to get the prototype working well enough to start lifting small objects.

Some build pictures: