David-Cabezas_SJSU Spartan Superway

Presentations today were cut short since the team had to help move full scale track to the workshop location from the courtyard. We encountered another problem with the bender since the bottlejack is not long enough to extend with our previous dimensions with the bender. Now, we plan on cutting the rods shorter and rethreading one end. Most of the time today was spent on putting together an updated BOM for our project, including the aluminum and screws/nuts needed for the track. This weekend I plan on order all of the aluminum from McMaster carr and the team will get some of the welding done. We are deciding to stick with 6000 series aluminum since the 3000 series was slightly more expensive and they did not have any in stock that fit our dimensions. We also ordered two 0.25" thick 12"x12" sheets of aluminum that will be used for the exit and entry components to our track.

No major updates on the project this week as we continue to put our track bender together. We were able to thread and cut our rods to the right size but unfortunately the die we used at the machine shop gave us threads that were too large. Problem could have come from wear and tear of the die through constant use. To alleviate this we had to rethread our rods manually with no vice with a less than quality die. Along with this, we found out that one of the holes drilled was off just by a couple of centimeters, in which we had to file it to the right size. Both of these issues set us back a day since it took awhile for us to fix the problems. For next week, we plan on looking into the aluminum supplier and to which what series would be appropriate for the project.

Due to unforeseen  setbacks, we were unable to complete the rail bender this week. Still progress made by fastening the fixed base onto the board and were able to drill the holes into the two unistrut pairs. We also attached the L brackets to the 6 vertical unistruts placed on the back. These are there to ensure the sliding base would move linearly along the board. For the upcoming weeks we plan on threading the rods and cutting them to appropriate size.  We were also able to receive the trial order of our 3D printed parts from MakerSpace. Most of our parts were ok, but a couple of them had issues due to the extra filament printed for support. On the third rail bracket, since the slot for the third aluminum rail is narrow, as we tried to clean it out the part began to split. This week I plan on discussing with Wyatt on how we can evade this issue by changing the orientation it it printed.

Today we were able to present our progress to our project. Both Dr. Furman and Ron was able to provide us with helpful feedback. After, we noticed that the wheels were not aligned. Once adjusting them and determining which wheels were pairs (in total there were four wheels at our disposal and one pair was slightly larger than the other), we placed a metal sheet under the 2x4 blocks so that the handle may slide and not scrape against the board. Lastly, due to lack of welding equipment we used JB weld paste to attach two unistruts back to back. This was done for the fixed and sliding base.

This week, most teams were able to do their first presentation. Unfortunately, our team was unable to go so we could not get feedback on our latest design choices from the other teams. Every team, however, seems as if they are ready to start building their project and prepare it for maker fair. Below is a link to our presentation. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Eki-vqZQgNWR_Ff_LHvOWWdngbZgOFDHx1YnSmC7qXM/edit?usp=sharing The day before these presentations, we were able to cut all of the unistruts for the rail bender. For the base, we decided on double-layering it since the screws ordered were a bit too long for just one board. Most of the unistruts were cut to about 7 inches, except for the sliding unistrust which was cut to 5.25 inches. Next week the team hopes in finishing assembling the railbender.

This week's meeting was mostly devoted to rebuilding prior year's track as it had to be disassembled for the move. However, we seemed to have lost a good portion of the materials originally in place during the move. This includes curves, switch sections, wedges and the entrance rail for the bogey. In consequence of this, we were unable to fully rebuild the track. While putting the track back together, we realized how poorly bent the aluminum rails were to begin with. This further emphasize the need of an accurate rail bender. This meant that not everything fit together as modular parts, which was promised in the previous iteration of the track. Besides the inconsistent bending, sometimes two brackets would not fit together with every metal bracket set. Another issue we came across with is how everything was fastened together. The screw heads were placed on the inside of the rails so that meant to unscrew everything, we had to go in from an angle with a 90 degree bent screwdri...

Today, the team worked on building some of the track sections so we may better visualize what parts we still need and what kind of brackets and rails the switch sections of our track will need. In general, the team will need about 20 3D printed brackets for our new track. At the moment, the team has two straight sections, two curves, and one switch section built. The biggest progression to our project, however, was finalizing our track bender design. The main components worked on was how the system will be supported by u-shaped metal rails, attached to a wooden board through 'Z' and 'L' brackets. Two threaded rods will keep the bender connected to the track and with the help of the bottle jack, apply an axial force to the rails. Two 2x4 wooden blocks will hold up the wheels and a soft material will be placed at the end so when part of the rail slides between the supports, there would not too much grinding between the material. We will accomplish this using thin metal ...