David-Cabezas_SJSU Spartan Superway

Today our team presented our designs and calculations to the Spartan Superway team. Dr. Furman recommended that we continue to update the overall CAD file of the track so that we may have something more up to date. There is also the possibility of sand casting our hanger brackets instead of injection molding the, but this option is still just a thought. Our team also began on working to improve the design of the track bender. The problem we had with it was that: 1. The wheels used to bend the rails were not aligned. 2. The back wooden plank that is suppose to keep the rail straight was loose and would tend to lean side to side 3. The bottlejack platform was not large enough to keep it in place while bending. 4. The handle bar not being perfectly locked in place also added to the issue of rails not bending perfectly So we began to take it apart and leaned on flipping the mechanism on its side. This is so that when bending the rails, we would have a more stable bend and likely av...

This week most teams were able to give their second presentations about their working project. A lot of the teams were on track with their schedule and were ready to move in on finalizing their design concepts. For example, the full scale bogey team was able to present their two-cart system for the bogey. Our team was unable to present this week since we had run out of class time for the presentations. We will be ready to present our design concepts for the y-switch section of our track and the calculations done for the deflections of our rails. The other small-scale teams did, however, present today. The small-scale controls team talked about using a lipo battery for inductive charging and why a GPS system could not work for our track. They also discussed how they are switching motors and exchanging some speed for torque. The small scale bogey team discussed his two different design concepts for the bogey, and he was interested in injection molding the wheels for the bogey as well...

Today was a short meeting for the small-scale track team. The team met up for only an hour and I continued to work on the design for the injection molding. I also was caught up with the problems that arose with the track bender. The track bender has issues with keeping the aluminum straight when bending since the backboard is not stable and the handle has the issue of moving left or right. The presentation was relatively short. The videos presented showed the impact of mobile technology on countries outside of the US. About 80% India's population owns a phone, but only 10% of those own a smartphone. While the cellular companies are creating new markets, they are also connecting people to each other using social media and communication through text messaging. This helped prepare us for the writing assignment due next week.

For today's session, I finished up laying out the design for the track our team will be working on this year. I added the middle portion of the track which includes the y-section where the bogey could split into two different loops. I also had a discussion about the charging station with the small-scale controls team. We are still not sure on how we would integrate magnets in the track for the charging station, but their code will tell the bogey to stop once it reaches the station. I am planning to work on a support bracket for the y-section for our track so that the switch sections could stay stable as the bogeys run along the track. This support is different from the half brackets because it will not be in the way of the bogey and will be attached along the top and bottom of the jigs. Below is a picture of the final design layout of our track.

For today's meeting, I went over a couple of alternative design concepts for the track. I mapped out how the center of the track will look like when we have fabricated all of our extra parts. This was helpful to the small scale controls team as they were trying to figure out where the bogey would pause for recharging on the track. I was also working on the CAD file for our hanger brackets. We are deciding on replacing most of the brackets on the track with a wider design so that the bogey would not scrape it when making the turns. Also, we found that if we were to hold the curve sections together with an additional bracket and raise the level by adding a support column, it would solve a lot of our problems with the track sagging and the bogey wheels dragging along the rail. We plan on currently holding off the meeting with Daniel Brolin until we can finalize our CAD drawings so that we may discuss injection molding for our brackets. Logan from the bogey team was also planning o...