04/19 to 04/26

This past week I helped Craig with machining plates that the wayside team will be using. Wayside plans on mounting their shoe to make contact along their designated power lines.

Additionally, the bevel gears and motors were ordered and we plan to have them by next week. I plan to continue to work with wayside to help them in completing their design.

04/05-04/19

The past few weeks I was tasked to look for the remaining parts for our braking and propulsion design. A.S. has approved funding for our propulsion motors and plan on ordering them soon.

Our team has been waiting for approval of A.S. for both the bevel gears and the propulsion motors, however, the bevel gears were not included in the inventory sent. I plan on ordering them through amazon but unfortunately, they only have on gear in inventory. I'm contacting them regarding restock of their gears and plan to order all four required as soon as they go up, luckily they are available with amazon prime and will take around 3 days to to arrive upon ordering them.

03/22 - 04/05

These past two weeks I've been meeting with Craig discussing the redesign for the brakes. We went over design ideas and considering the materials needed. I've ordered the springs, motor, and the wire we plan on using for the brake design. Whether we plan on using the spring and wire definitively will be determined in the coming weeks as we run tests on the bogie. The calculations determined to work, but the materials are cheap enough that we might consider more flexible cable wire or stronger spring.

 Unfortunately, my techshop class was cancelled this previous week and has been rescheduled for this weekend. I'm hoping to take the class and help Craig in milling parts for the brake design.

03/15-03/22

This past Wednesday we discussed the overall braking system and decided to change the design. Craig presented a design that would be controlled by a bar and a spring moving brake pads directly on the wheel and stop them using friction. I've been looking over the potential parts needed for the chalks and calculations for the forces required from the motor actuating and spring needed for our design. We plan on posting CAD design models soon and plan on working throughout next week on manufacturing parts for the brake. Additionally, I'm making sure to stay in direct contact with Patrick regarding the addition of a second stepper motor for braking each bogie, and power requirements that would be needed. I plan on purchasing a stepper motor this weekend.

03/08-03/14

This past week I spent some time looking for master cylinder to fit the brakes. After speaking to Craig, we considered to hold off on purchasing a master cylinder as we reconsider the brake design for the bogie. Additionally, I have been approved for machine work at the TechShop and plan on aid in finishing the motor mounts for propulsion.

Latest update from January to February

Winter break:  Our bill of materials wasn't approved, Eric suggested seeking funding or sponsorship for the motors for propulsion. Unfortunately, Groschopp, the company that sells the motors we wanted, couldn't provide us with any help. I spent some time looking for cheaper motors for propulsion that would meet our power and torque requirements. Oriental had motors that were larger in size and also much more expensive, our options were limited as to get any motors for a lesser price.

Over the past weeks we've been looking for cheaper motors, as the motors were the most expensive components within our bill of materials. Additionally, I looked for ways to cut down cost and found cheaper miter gears for our  propulsion. Fortunately, A.S. provided funds that should cover all our most expensive parts for propulsion, including the motors from Groschopp, and we plan to receive them in about 3-4 weeks. In the meantime we plan on working on brakes, as it seems to be the most difficult task for our team.

This week I have been working on setting up our primary presentation of the semester.

11/23-11/30

This week Craig and I met to finalize the bill of materials and to create a quick design of what braking system we plan on integrating. We decided to modify a brake caliper to grip the rail and serve as the brakes. Completing the braking design is our top priority over winter break and we plan on finishing up 3-D model of the motor to make sure the components fit together.

I also worked on completing the final presentation slides and worked on the rough draft of the project report.