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.

11/16-11/23

This week I met with Craig in order to assess the build of prototype for components of propulsion (gear and motor). We further discussed the direction of the braking system and decided that placing brakes separated from the motor shaft is our only option as the spacing within the bogie was too small to add any other component. I will continue to look at cheap brake calipers we can alter for braking.

This week I began work on organizing materials and parts in order to present them in both the presentation 3 and for our final report. We continue to have difficulty in placement of braking. Size constraints are too limiting and we are working on implementing motor braking.

11/02 - 11/09

This week I worked with Craig on finalizing some of the parts required for our build. I haven't had the opportunity to finalize the braking design calculations but Craig and I are still having difficulty in preliminary ideas of location for the band brake and the actuator. I plan on discussing this at length with other sub-teams and our advisers. The idea is to develop a design that would make the band brakes actuated individually with an actuator each (spacing must be considered).

Week 9

This week I worked on refining the information for our presentation. I worked with Craig on creating a CAD model for the band brake but we are still trying to decide how to actuate the band brake and the sizes necessary to fit in our model and also properly meet our specifications of slowing down/braking.