A quick update on this week's progress. While we are set back due to some complications that have arisen at no fault of our own. We are having to redesign some of our bogies so that it is narrower (the motor team has informed us that the wheels on the new track will overhang). By doing this not only will the entire drive bogie have to be made thinner, but the route selection will also have to be made thinner or there will be some hanging off of the side of the bogie. The alternative is that we cut whatever overhangs the side of the bogie. 

Starting next week we will start to cut all of the materials using MakerSpace tools. We will specifically be looking to use the waterjet cutter. After all the materials are cut and assuming there are no flaws we will then begin assembly. To do this we will be using whatever welding material is available, hopefully, the welding tools supplied by MakerSpace.

Shop Drawings

As of 2/20/19, there has not been a significant change to our plan/CAD. Recently our main focus was the track, but as they have notified us that there will not be any significant changes, we have begun creating our shop drawings. After we have done this we will go out and purchase the required materials so that we can cut out our designs and weld everything together. We have also been notified that our presentation (originally planned for 2/27/19) will be pushed out a week allowing all the teams time to prep their presentations and allow for seniors to go to the job fair.

On top of the crunch that we are already experiencing, the full-scale bogie team is working with the controls team to properly spec out and place the linear actuator that will be used to control the route selection system. Though we are unable to get an exact number on the amount of force it will take to move the route selection, a rough guess(timate) was made (~5lb as the system is definitely lighter than that) so that both teams at least have a starting point. Checking in with our coach Danny, he says that we are fine and that we should try and make sure we have the linear actuator specced out ASAP.

Progress after Winter Break

During our second official week at the new facilities, the full-scale bogie team has finally started cracking down on creating a prototype for Maker Faire. Since all the teams have had to move, the track has been disassembled and left in the Engineering Courtyard. This only makes creating a prototype more difficult as the new facilities currently do not have ample room for a full sized, full-scale model. Another issue we have run into is that the track team is having to reuse a previous years track and having to alter it so that the designs other teams have made will be able to work on the modified track. 

Since the clock is now ticking and with every passing week Maker Faire gets a closer, allocation of funding for fabrication becomes an issue. While there is a pool of money all the teams can draw from, the issue becomes allocating portions of the budget to certain teams. Though to our benefit, because we are reusing a track from a previous year, this should reduce the cost of track and thus allowing for other teams a larger portion of the budget. As for the bogie team, our designs depended on the track teams new designs and to our delight, they have informed us that there will only be slight modifications to the original track design and that our original model should still be sufficient. 

Week after Thanksgiving Break

These past few weeks our team has been mainly concerned with preparing for Presentation 3. This means that we were performing FEA analysis on different parts of the slave bogie. The FEA on the slave bogie was mainly concerning the bottom plate that connects to the cabin. FEA analysis was also performed on the drive bogie with horizontal and vertical in mind. Since the bogie team, this year is primarily focused on the drive bogie all changes have only been made to the drive bogie. The FEA analysis showed that the maximum deflection experienced on the drive bogie is still less than a millimeter. This can be attributed to the fact that the drive bogie is mostly made with 10 mm steel. With these materials, the factor of safety is extremely high. Even with the 10 mm steel the drive bogie is only 75 kg (maximum of 250 kg) when not loaded (no motor). This means that we are able to reduce the amount of material used to make the bogie, this will cut the material cost while only slightly reducing the factor of safety & deflecting marginally more.

This week was like many other prior weeks this week focused on communicating with other teams and improving our design. This week we have received the dimensions and CAD files from the guideway team. This allows us to flush out the height of the bogies. Adjusting the hight of the bogies affects the route selection system. Since we are changing the design of the drive bogie from a 4 wheel drive system to a 2 wheel drive system as well as the dimensions of the drive bogie itself, this affects the motor team. We have checked in with them and luckily the changes made to the bogie is not going to affect the motor team.

This week we have also have been using Ansys to look at the deformation of the drive bogie. I have been running into issues since the student version of Ansys is limited by the files it is able to accept as well as the mesh profiles it is able to generate. I have just found that the student version of Ansys is extremely limited, this is why that I will try and go to school and use the full version.

This week was an exceptionally interesting week. All of the teams met with Dr. Furman who had some information that he disclosed that would affect all of Spartan Superway. Though it affects every team, we as a whole will continue to move forward and try out best. In terms of our project, the integration team has continued to focus on improving the design and streamlining the process. We talked to the lead of the wayside power team about moving the super caps and batteries. The move hinges on the idea of having a drive bogie that is reliant on the slave bogie. Though this drive bogie will be reliant on the slave bogie, we will not be making any design changes as the drive bogie design will still be used as a base model. The independent drive bogies will also have the chance to operate as rescue bogies in the changes that the system breaks down somewhere on the track. The only difference in these bogies is that the rescue bogie will have a carriage for its own supercapacitors. Ultimately the system still becomes reliant on the batteries that the slave bogie will be carrying.

This week I worked more on the slave bogie. I was able to find the CAD for the slave bogie that last years team made. From this CAD model, I was able to alter it to fit the design specifications that we had imposed for this years slave bogie. This included removing the motors from the slave bogie as well as the steering. The route selection has also been removed but will be replaced later for a system that fits into the third rail. Further alterations include finding a way to bind the drive bogie and slave bogie together. There was also a presentation this week from a Futran representative that said that we much be careful of the information that we publicly disclose. He had made the assumption that everyone was under an NDA when in fact no one has been required to sign one. I foresee this to be a problem in the future.