Spring 2018, Week 15: Completing the Final Presentation

May 9, 2018

On Wednesday, we came into the SSDC to adjust any sections that would cause the bogie to bind. We re-bent a curve section, as well as shaved the brackets, which seemed to alleviate any binding concerns. With our small scale track complete, all that was left for the rest of the semester is to finish the final report and presentation for our senior project. On Thursday, our team met up in the Student Union to complete the presentation. After our presentation on Friday, our team will come into the SDCC to break down the track for Maker Faire.

Spring 2018, Week 14: Completing the Track

May 2, 2018

Throughout the week, our team managed to complete all the sections of the track. Early in the week, I managed to assemble the rest of the straight sections because the brackets were all finally printed. In addition to completing the straights, I also bent the curves for the last curved section, all while Kevin completed the last switch section. On Wednesday, Bryan and I finished assembling a complete track, as seen in Figure 1. With the small scale track finally completed, our team can start focusing on the final presentation of the semester, as well as the final report. This as been a long, exhausting process, but it feels great finally seeing our track completed. All that is left is to ensure that the bogies have no problems binding around the track.

Figure 1: Completed Small Scale Track

Spring 2018, Week 13

April 25, 2018

This week, the team continued to manufacture the track. With the mounting sleeves deburred, our team can finally start assembling portions of the track. As can be seen in Figure 1, our team managed to mount a straight and switch section on the track. Our team is still waiting on brackets to be printed, so we have to wait till next week to complete our track. As of now, we still have to finish about 6 straights, one curve, and one switch.

Figure 1: Mounted Switch and Straight.

Spring 2018, Week 12: Correcting Mounting sleeves and Waiting on Brackets

April 18, 2018

This week, our team continued to work our way towards manufacturing the track. We ran into some issues with the mounting sleeves that Bryan was welding because the metal burrs were preventing the sleeves from sliding onto the L-shape square tubing. Thus, Bryan utilized the class period to shave them down.

Meanwhile, my workload slowed down this week because our team ran out of brackets to assemble the straights. With the mounting brackets and the 3-D printed brackets incomplete, our manufacturing has stalled slightly. However, I am still confident that my team will complete this in the coming weeks.