Last week both Ron and Professor Furman were on vacation. Although Ron has returned, Prof. Furman continues his vacation through 7/29/16.
Throughout the past few and upcoming weeks, more Brazilian interns are departing to Brazil. I have been keeping up with the Bogie, I.S.E, Solar, and Civil sub-teams to ensure the flow of their summer work can continue into the Fall 2016 seniors. All of these teams have begun their Summer 2016 Final Report last week, and continue to work on them this week.
Last Friday Neto departed back home, so it was very important to put his files in the Spartan Superway Archive. Neto and I also met Kyle, the machinist who works in the SJSU Engineering Building last week and received a bunch of insight on the Bogie teams current design. We were able to brainstorm for a while and come up with a newer and simpler design. The new design will be much more robust in terms of welding locations and by reducing the amount of moving mechanical parts. The initial design would have had to use two power drills to lower the retractable system during maintenance. The new design removes the need for power drills, moving screws, and metal on metal contact. The new design will use one or two air pistons that will be attached to the main portion of the bogie itself, and the rod of the piston will contact and be attached to a new cross member at the top of the bogie. The cross member will provide more strength to the design, while the air pistons removed the need for steel contacting steel during maintenance. A few cross members on the design will include a few robust changes as the welding on these parts were deemed as a potential hazard. Although Neto is back in Brazi, he will help finish this new design and send it back to the Spartan Superway Archive. Once Neto has completed the design, I can send the work off to Kyle to be ordered and machined.
It is Victor's last week here in San Jose as well. He has been working on the braking system for the half-scale bogie. This week we received the caliper, brake pad, and other related hardware for the braking system. The last two pieces of the braking system that need to be ordered are the master cylinder, and the actuator that will compress / release the piston in the master cylinder. Victor needed the other components first as Honda, nor any other related company, releases enough measurement data for their parts, which are very crucial for Victor's design. The braking system will be hydraulic, but will also be automated with the use of a linear actuator. The new bogie design will free up a lot of internal space that the braking hardware can be mounted.
The Civil team has completed their design of the full-scale test track that will be implemented at 1555 South 7th St. They have also explored a variety of routes that the Spartan Superway can go through the southern Bay Area.
The I.S.E Team has implemented a safety guidelines for the shop, and is also continuing the organization of the shop as well. Cross-team communication has still be occurring to make sure other sub-teams stay on deadline and met their weekly and end goals.
The Solar Team has been working on a new iteration of the racking system, while working on their final report. The Solar team was able to get an intensive solar analysis completed that can determine how many solar panel arrays are required for the full-scale test track. Racking and mounting the solar arrays has been the main problem over the past week or so.
The French team has been working on the pseudo-code for the half-scale bogie automation, and the automation requirements for the bogie & podcar. They have developed a bill of materials with necessary items required to full automate the system and test it. While they continue their work, they are also waiting to have a meeting with Ron, Prof. Furman, and myself to discuss purchasing components to complete their task. Isaac has been apart of the French team as well, and has been looking into the pros & cons of linear & rotational motors.
The Korean mechanical team has been working on both the Suspension for the half-scale model, and the small-scale test track. The mechanical team and myself also met with Kyle the machinist and incorporated some of his knowledge into fixing up the suspension design in terms of manufacturing and strength. This team has completed these revisions and I have just sent in the drawing files to Kyle for inspection. The test track team has almost finalized their small-scale test track design, and intends to use Vander-bend to bend the necessary aluminum for their track.
The Korean electrical team has been working weekdays and weekends to get the old design small-scale podcar and bogie to work electronically. They will be using a magnetic system to determine where the podcar is on the track at all times. They have looked into RFID and WiFi communications as well, and are determining which will prove the strongest contender for this system.
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