Week Two Update

During the past two weeks 5/31/16 to 6/10/16, I have been ensuring deadlines per sub-teams; solar, civil, ISE, and bogie have been meeting their deadlines that are due each week. I have been developing proposal formats for each team to fill out each week to ensure organization of team duties and to keep teams on schedule. 

I have been providing technical assistance to each team of any questions that they have during the weeks. I have also been speaking with Mr. Swenson and Professor Furman on improving design concepts that each team can incorporate into their current designs for improvement. The warehouse has been on the positive path of improvement in organization and cleanliness since the ISE held their 5S presentation. Each team was assigned a different area within the warehouse to organize and clean which will continue throughout the summer. 

Cross-team communication was deemed an issue in previous semesters, so this summer I have been emphasizing the importance of this issue, and have assigned the ISE team to help keep communication across teams active so that no harmful interference occurs later in the summer when the integration of sub teams is crucial. 

The bogie team has been a particular team for me to focus on because of the lack of members they currently consist of. The bogie consist of the mechanical bogie, suspension, braking, propulsion, and steering which consumes a lot of energy and minds to solve the issue of creating a new and improved vehicle transport system. I have been communicating with this team on potential ways to approach certain issues, such as braking and propulsion. An idea for the braking would be to fix two disc brake calipers to the bogie in such a way that these calipers could stop the vehicle by touching the guideway. An actuator would have to be programmed to automate this system.

I personally have been waiting for the hall effect sensors and neodenium magnets to arrive in the mail so I can begin testing how this sensor will work in tracking the small scale vehicle. I am looking forward to solving this issue as tracking the vehicles is very important in case they break down, or other issues arise. 

Next week the international students will be on vacation from Tuesday to Friday, so I will be working on the tracking system during this time. 

Sincerely,

Eric Hagstrom   

Spartan Superway Summer 2016

Hello All,

My name is Eric Hagstrom and I will be the Research Intern Manager this summer working on the Spartan Superway. I am a recent graduate with a B.S in Mechanical Engineering. My duties this summer will include ensuring deadlines are met so that all of the interns working this summer have something to go home to be proud of, and to make sure the project is completed on schedule. All of the interns will learn new skills, whether that be team-working, computer automated drafting, machine took skills, and research in their particular area of expertise to expand their engineering knowledge. I will be providing technical assistance as well.

In addition to managing this summer, I will be directly working on the small-scale controls system. My first project will include designing a vehicle tracking system using a hall effect sensor and corrugated sheet metal. I am hopeful that a neodymium magnet in alliance with the hall effect sensor will provide a consistent signal when moved along the corrugated sheet metal. This will provide vehicle tracking for the small-scale track, and potentially the half and full scale tracks as well.

-Eric Hagstrom
Mechanical Engineer @ SJSU
Ejhagstrom1991@gmail.com