Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Week 37: Final Report & MakerFaire

The final report that summarizes the entirety of the work performed this year is being complied to be delivered by Friday, May 19th, and coincides with the beginning of MakerFaire. MakerFaire will be the final and most significant public viewing of the work that has been put forth on the Spartan Superway project. The twelfth-scale teams have come together well and created a reliably functioning model, which the previous year did not have. Track Fabrication and Process Development has produced quality work that has empowered the entire twelfth-scale team to do well, namely with reference to corner sections made and aid on the solar panel rack creation.

Expect the final report to be made available in the coming days.

Lastly, the bender has been moved to the shop, and necessary documentation on how to use it will be added before final completion of the project.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Week 36: Final Presentation & Documentation

The final presentation has been completed and will be shown at the Senior Design Conference on Friday May 12th. It will showcase the work the team has put forth this year and demonstrate the accomplishments achieved. In case the video at the end of the presentation does not work, click the link below:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByEshzEXNw20QTNDYk1pNUVRbWc

What will not be shown in the presentation will be the bogie backstop for the half-scale team, as that work was not directly within our purview. Comments about the aged shop machinery will be reserved for the final report, or may exist only as a reference for future teams.

Final documentation shall be complete by this time next week in preparation for the completion of the semester. Any knowledge gained from this semester will be condensed into some form to be accessible to teams beyond our year.

As a final note with regards to builds, the half-scale bogie backstop achieved a gravity-assisted slip-fit onto the existing structure, requiring no modifications whatsoever.

The half-scale bogie backstop fit as planned.


Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Week 35: Finishing Up The Year

The solar panel racks and bogie backstops have been completed, and will be test-fit in the shop today.

Kevin has more detailed information concerning the completed builds.

Documentation is required for task handoff and goals achieved in the form of the final report, as well as presentations that need to be prepared for both the Senior Design Conference on May 12th and MakerFaire on May 19th, 20th, and 21st.

The track is still in good shape and things appear to be running well, so no further fabrication appears necessary.

Completed bogie backstops.

New post sleeve for the support.

Test fit on new solar panel racks is positive.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Week 34: Build Update, Final Report & Presentation

May 12th is coming soon, which is the Senior Design Conference where the senior projects that seniors have been working on through the past two semesters show what they have accomplished and learned. Each group and subteam, including ours, will need to present, and compiling information towards that goal (as well as for the final report) is ongoing.

With regards to the build requests received thus far, the solar panel racks are approximately 20% complete. Most of the required parts have been acquired already, with a section of angle stock being the last section necessary acquisition.

The bogie backstop for the 1/2 scale track will be tested later today in the shop, the results from which will determine the trajectory needed to complete the build.

Go to Kevin's blog post this week for more specific updates on the builds.

Solar panel rack end sections.

Half scale bogie backstop.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Week 33: Solar Panel Rack Build & Shop Tools

The materials to build the solar panel racks have for the most part been obtained, so the build will begin shortly. Only one post support needs to be fabricated, while two halves of the solar panel racks need to be made. The latest completion date is the end of April at the moment.

Many of the tools in the Spartan Superway shop do not work. The status of each tool will be made part of a comprehensive list, detailing the state of each tool and the commensurate recommendation for noteworthy items.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Week 32: Presentation 2 & Refinement

Paseo Public Prototyping Challenge last weekend was a relative success. The pieces fabricated by the team were assembled into a track that was functional.

This week the team will give the second presentation of the semester, focusing on completed activities and what remains for the semester.

Focus on shop tools will be largely relegated to investigation and documentation into current problems and corresponding recommendations, and not necessarily aggressive work to get them running again.

Lastly, considerations for task handoff are being compiled, but in light of the foreseeable future of the Spartan Superway project (where in-house work will focus largely on CAD, design, and analysis), operational machines may be secondary or tertiary in relevance and importance.


Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Week 31: Preparing for Paseo

The Paseo Public Prototyping challenge is only a few days away. Updated information from the other small scale teams is promising, with a completed bogie being able to traverse a single loop as of several days ago. Admittedly, what will be presented at Paseo will not be the most refined version that the small scale team has to offer, but should still function relatively well and allow for revisions heading towards MakerFaire.

No requests for help have been made of the track improvement team.

More detailed investigation will need to be made into the state of the aged and donated tools around the shop, but many of them appear to be broken beyond repair, are missing parts that cannot be found, do not have the requisite associated items, need new parts, or just do not work well.

Click here to go to the week 3 post for some basic investigation into shop tool issues.