Week 4 - Fab Lab Access, Presentation 1

Only a few updates this week:

The process for gaining access to the fabrication lab on campus has been slow, so we intend to perform fabrication with our tools at home if access to the lab requires more time than we can afford to or plan to wait for.

The team is presenting on current design work and progress today. To manipulate a small number of pieces, especially where adjustments may be necessary, we have found that manual benders are a good starting point. Current plans are to build something similar to a Hossfeld^TM bender, the main point being the utilization of a die to form the track around.

Week 3 - Research and Background

Currently, effort is being put towards researching means of material manipulation, specifically for bending our bar stock. Basic research so far shows low-cost methods are all manual, utilizing either torque/leverage by hand or applying pressure via hydraulic ram with a die.

Effort is also being put towards gaining access to on-campus machine shops. Seeing as iteration and design are our focus for the coming weeks, this is not yet an issue. We have some time to get things worked out on this front before it becomes an issue. Kevin has some tools at home, so work may proceed there if necessary.

With regards to last week's post, there are several updates that can be made:
1) One loop of the track is currently usable, and restoration of the track takes precedence over fabricating a new one at this time. Some material is available from last year to expand, if possible.
2) Some fabrication tools are non-operational. See images below.
3) Communication with other teams has been set up, namely in the form of Slack and Google Drive.

 Issues:
The band saw shaft broke, so the entire bottom assembly with the motor has been removed.

 

The grind disc on the grinder is down to bare metal. Would have to look to replace it to use it.

The mill is missing the drive mechanism to allow for vertical movement of the head.

 

The lathe appears to be alright, but it is dusty and there's no oil nearby to use to lubricate it. Did not turn it on to run it for fear of running with no oil in the gears.

       

      

Updated gantt chart: 

Week 2 - What's Now, What's Next

The current goals laid out for us on the Small Scale Track Fabrication team are:

1) to create a method or means by which aluminum bar stock can be reliably bent to shape, and

2) to develop a means to measure track length,

with the goal to ensuring that everything has been or will be fabricated to the required dimensions.

A more immediate goal that could be pursued would be to return the track to the usable state it was in at the end of the spring semester, to aid the bogie team and track improvement in understanding the previous issues that had occurred. 

Another immediate item that could be pursued is to determine the usability of available fabrication tools. In the shop where the project is currently being housed, several tools do not appear to be in working order, so work with Eric Hagstrom and the professors must be done to determine fixes or workarounds for what or how we may need to fabricate.

Communication with past or current individuals or organizations that are or were involved in the project may be key in increasing visibility to the community or sponsorship for the team. No details about this point yet.

Investigation of the previous work that has led to the current track design is important to understanding how decisions were made. Calling upon the general archive or individuals that have worked on the project will be helpful towards this end.

Communication with all other teams will be crucial to ensuring that a cohesive final product is achieved. One issue that plagued the previous year's team was the inability to integrate all systems well.

Common build materials for the track, such as aluminum bar stock and machined metal, appear to be in good supply. No action appears to be needed on this front at this time.

Research shall be done to look into past or current designs of similar real-world systems for inspiration and insight, which will also highlight benefits and detractors of using such a system. This is currently beyond the scope of our model design, but will aid in decision-making in the future, especially if there is intent to directly scale the model to full-size.

We will look to add pictures within the coming days to highlight several outstanding issues mentioned here.