Friday, May 10, 2019

Presentation week

This week was mainly focused on presentations. My team created a small demonstration track to showcase our bogies for the Alumni event as well as the final presentation of Friday. The track had to be pushed by hand from the Superway building all the way to campus. Fortunately, both the bogies were able to be separated and transported to school in cars. There was also a  prototype review/update on wednesday where each team had to give a breakdown of the progress in manufacturing/producing their senior project designs. Some teams such as the guideway team and wayside power are not completely finished with their manufacturing. While this was okay for the project update this week, their projects need to be finished by next Saturday as there is an exhibition of all of hte spartan superway projects.

Friday, May 3, 2019

Senior Project Manufacturing

This week more progress was made on the bogie. The tubes that connect the bogie were cut on one of the automatic hacksaw. The side plates of drive bogie were then welded to these tubes. Because the tubes didn't fit exactly in the holes that were cut out by the waterjet was too small. To solve this, the walls of the drive bogie (where the tubes slotted in) were filled down if not angle ground. After the tubes were slotted into their correct positions and welded into plate. After the other side plate of the Drive bogie was slid into place and welded ensuring that the tubes would not shift. The route selection has also had some work done, having both ends bored out so that the internal diameter is exactly 62 mm. The outer diameter was going to be skinned but it was decided that it would be unnecessary as it would likely take up multiple cutting tools on the lathe. This may pose a problem for the final assembly of the drive bogie but as we have found from the track team that even if the 3rd rail is manufactured, it is unlikely that it will be assembled. Since we dont have to finalize the route selection system, we can prioritize other aspects of the manufacturing and making sure that the rest of bogie is made correctly and to spec. Worst case scenario we can leave it for future teams to improve on as our primary focus for this year was to separate the bogie into a two-part system (drive and slave).

Saturday, April 27, 2019

Manufacturing

This week most of my team did not attend the weekly meeting as we were starting manufacturing of the route selection. The amount of time that we are able to use the ME 41 Lab room is within a very constrained time frame (12 - 3 pm). During this time we began working on the route selection by cutting a steel pipe to the appropriate length. After we faced the cut so that it was a flat face and then began boring the inner diameter of the tube. Since the material is steel, progress was extremely slow and we are mostly done with one side of one route selection tube. We did not finish within the allotted time which means we will have to return to the ME  41 lab to keep working on it. When we return we will fix the outer diameter of the tube to 70mm and the inner diameter of the tube to be 62 mm. After one side is finished then we will repeat with the other route selection tubes. We will also pressure fit the bearings in, and then install the route selection rotators. We still need to buy 3 extra caster wheels for the route selection. As of this Friday, I began welding the frame together but was unable to finish due to the lack of time that the Central Shop gave me access to their welder as they have many tickets that they still need to fulfill.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Presentation's cont.

This week was rather straightforward. The main focus of this week was to finish up all the presentations that were either cut short or left out from last week. This was mainly to get updates from the other full scale teams. This week we did find that the waterjet cutter is back and is able to cut our parts. Our parts were cut and are now waiting to be assembled and welded. As the semester winds down, the only thing left is cutting the route selection and having it lathed.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Week After Break

Coming back from Spring Break, our team needed to hit the ground running. While I have been frantically trying to get trained on the WaterJet Cutter. I have finished making the OMAX files and have even transported the material. Yet the day that I was to have my material cut by the central shop, the WaterJet cutter broke. Specifically the high pressure line that delivers water to the nozzle disconnected and was spraying waters all over the shop. This not only prevents us from cutting, but this prevents our team from making any significant progress on manufacturing. After the WaterJet broke, our group had to give a presentation on the progress our group has made. Since this presentation and the setback I have been looking at getting the piece manufactured in a separate shop, though the downside to this is that we may have to pay for this service.

To add to this, the route selection still needs to be finalized as the steel tube is extremely thick and the wall needs to be reduced to 2 mm thick. This posses a problem because the tube is going to be very difficult to cut. Though once this piece is cut, it should be easy enough to weld in place.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Progress on manufacturing

Out team has been making progress in seeing our designs be manufactured. The sheet steel and steel tubing were purchased and delivered from a contractor. Jason and I met with the contractor and helped him unload the materials into a club room on campus. I have also been in communication with the Maker Space, so that I may get access to their waterjet and welding equipment. The issue that I have continually encountered is that almost every one of the staff has said that to gain access I have to talk to someone else, and then refers me to the next person. Speaking with Dr. Furman, I have submitted a job request to the central shop as the coordinator of the shop is responsible for the waterjet cutter training. So in my request to get the pieces cut from the sheet steel, I have also submitted a request to be trained on the machine. Within that request, I have also requested to be officially trained on the MIG welder as I already know how to weld and only need the clearance to access these tools. Hopefully, training will begin soon that I will be able to cut out and weld our required parts.

Thursday, March 14, 2019

This week was primarily focused on finishing up the last of the presentations. There was also a bit of time allocated to watching the required video (that we were supposed to go to campus for). It turned out that we were going to watch the presentation via Zoom, but after some technical difficulties, we resorted to having the meeting recorded and having it sent to us to watch at home. After the rest of the presentations, I checked with the other groups to see if they needed anything from our team. As it turns out, the other groups did not need to check with us this week. I also informed Tynan that after purchasing the materials we were extremely underbudget and that the materials would likely only come out to about 300 dollars.