Winter Break - 2/8

Lots of parts have been machined already including all sheet metal parts, most of the gearbox housing, rod ends, and square tubing, and we are getting ready to put welding the main structure together. The parts that still need to be ordered include the gears, fasteners, pulleys, and pulley belts. We will be ordering them within the next few weeks. We will continue manufacturing parts, and will beginning welding everything up soon.

Presentation 3

11/16-11/30

For the last two weeks, we've been working on getting together the BOM for all parts that will need to be purchased for the Spring semester, working on the 3rd presentation, and working on the rough draft of the final report that is due at the end of this week. There are still some details that need to be worked out. Engineering drawings for all of the parts that are going into the bogie need to be made for the final report and for manufacturing that will occur next semester. Michael has started working on these, however, it will take some time because there are so many different parts going into the bogie design. The goal for this week is to finish the rough draft of the final report in order to get feedback for the final draft which is due coming up.

11/9-11/16

During this week, we continue our progress in our Bogie, Failsafe and Steering. All subsystems are coming together little by little. In the current CAD design, the propulsion, breaking and suspension sub-systems have been implemented. The design has not been finalize but it will be a preview to visualize the final design. There has been minor changes in our design as we have noticed some issues. For example, the angles of our steering changed slightly thus one of the pulleys changed from 24 teeth to 28 teeth. The linkage controlling the upper steering instilled us to make the change. Also, some gaps in the bogie were changed in order to mount the gear housing system. Also, we began to write the rough draft for our final report. Adding all details of our design and explaining why the changes took place will be of upmost importance to ensure that future teams are able to improve and progress.  Also, we will be finalizing the B.O.M. for our parts. We have yet to turn in the B.O.M as we want to completely finalize our design and obtain a accurate total cost to ensure fundings are delivered as necessary.

11/2-11/9

During this week, our group the main focus to finalize is the housing of the gears, the prototype testing and the implementation of the subsystems. The function housing of the gears is to keep in place the gear system without impeding any functionality of the rest of the subsystems. Essentially, the limited space in-between is the main concern for this design. The rapid prototype is made of wood which will enable us to observe the functionality of our current design. The main functionality of our prototype is to identify exactly the tolerances necessary for the Bogie to stay in place as it goes up and down the slope. The tolerances of the two bottom wheels are of upmost importance as it will prevent the bogie from hitting the top. Testing our current design is necessary to change any details as soon as possible to avoid late major changes in the future. By allowing ourselves a respectable amount of time to finish our design, all unexpected errors can be resolved in a timely manner. Also, in accordance to the groups, the date(November 16) we planned to order parts is approaching thus all the parts necessary for our system will be listed to meet the deadline. The implementation of all subsystems is of upmost importance as all systems will come together in the end. We have been keeping close communication with the other teams as well as sharing all our design CAD files to ensure that their design will fit accordingly.

10/26-11/2

This week was spent working on the second round of presentations. In order to prepare for this, FEA was completed on the failsafe. In order to do so, hand calculations were completed to determine the impact forces that would occur during a failure. The FEA von mises stresses can be seen in figure 1. Gearing for the steering was also determined this week.

The second presentation is as follows.

10/19-10/26

During this week, our team continue working on the new adjustments towards our bogie, steering and failsafe. A meeting via Skype with Bengt was made in order to discuss our adjustments and new possibilities to improve our design. It was decided that the bar connecting both bogies will be lowered below the track. By lowering such bar, the normal forces will be greatly increased thus the amount of torque necessary by the motor to go up the 17 degree incline will decrease considerably. Another advantage of lowering the bar is the spacing within the bogie will increase. The more space we can provide for the other sub-teams the better it will be as they will not be limited to certain parts and design. The steering was decided to be maintained as a gear and pulley system which will provide more safety thanks to the gear ratios in place. Our communication with other teams is and will continue to be essential as we want to make sure all sub-systems can fit as expected. Also, we had another meeting with all the sub-teams where we decided on a date where we will finalize our design and all the parts that will be order. November 16 is the day every sub-team will submit their list and prices of all parts needed to essentially obtain the funding and finally placing the order. By setting the date we will ensure the parts will come before the beginning of next semester.