week 36: final presentation

The Final presentation was overall successful. the 12th scaled team seemed to be doing a lot better than the half scale.

week 35: fixing the corners

The main failure happened during the Paseo Public Prototyping was that the bogie falling off from the corners. The whole team had been trying to solve this problem.The first idea was to add height to the corners so when the bogie tilts, it would have more surface area for the upper guide. The final solution was adding layers to the inner part of the corner so that the bogie would not tilt when it comes to the corners.

week 34: solar panel rack request update

The current main job is the request of solar panel rack from solar team. The progress is at about 20% according to Kevin.


The next task coming up is the final presentation at May 12th. The overall progress is on point.

Week 33: Broken ankle

I twisted my ankle last week from playing basketball. It damaged my ligament so I could not move freely.

Therefore, I could not help on making another solar panel rack that was requested by the solar team. However i should be able to help with whatever comes next.

week 32: presentation 2

Public prototyping was overall successful. the only thing was that the bogie was not able to work with phone app.

Week 31: Public prototyping in 3 days

All teams looks to have a promising progress on the 1/12 scaled model. the goal was to have bogie looping half the track, one bogie looping the full track, one bogie being able to go from station to station, and the last one being able to be controlled from cell phone app.

The looks fully put together and functional. we are excited to see the full project at the event.

week 30: Paseo Public Prototyping

Paseo Public Prototyping is coming up on next the weekend. All teams are working over time in order to get the project working. We will be in charge of disassembling the track, moving it to our spot, and bring it back to the shop at the end of the day.

There are currently no outstanding requests from other teams so we would be in the lab and help who ever need an extra hand.

week 29: helping other teams

I was told that the track improvment team did not successfully joint the upper guide using metal adheisive. They will come up with a different method, possibly using nuts and bolt.
In the mean time, I helped the posistion team to cut the thin metal strips. The sheet metal cutter in the shop doea not really measure 5mm of length so we had to use a ruler and eyeball to have a precise cut. although we had a template to measure 5mm, the results arent stable and there are still some of them wasted due to the size difference.

week 28: whats next

after the first presentation, we are basiclly free to help out other teams.
Dr. furman asked us to document every thing and prepare a poseter for the maker fair. that would be our final thing to do. right now we would focus on getting the track ready for the paseo public. the goal is to have everyone test their products before then.

Week 27, Presentation 1

Presentation 1:

week 25: bends complete and moving on

Kevin had completed all the corners for the track.
We are moving on to help the solar team with their ribs.
The measuring block for the ribs which are r=24" is completed.
The die is still yet to make because solar team is making tweaks on their design so we need update on that.

week 24: measuring block

The 19.67" measuring block is made for the 0.25" aluminum stocks. The purpose of making a measuring block is to measure the bent aluminum stocks and possibly hammer the aluminum against the block to reach the desired shape.

Good news: machine shop E123 is now open for longer hours 

M 3:00-5:00  PM

T  3:00-10:00 PM

W 3:00-5:00 PM

TH 3:00-10:00 PM

F 3:00-8:00 PM

week 23(spring 2017)

This is the first week of spring 2017. We are informed that we have around 2 months to finish the project and present at paseo public prototyping. with the tight amount of time given, we have to speed up and work harder.

My current responsibility is to create the measuring block for the 0.25" aluminum flat stocks while Kevin works on the die.

Later on we will help the solar team with their ribs when we are finished with the current work.

week 15: update and finals week

Update from team member Kevin that there is no need for us to manufacture the strip for positioning team.

No word were put in to the Spartan Superway due to the upcoming final exams.

week 14: Presentation

This week we focused fully on the final presentation and tried to meet every specification of the rubric.

presentation 3:

Week 13 final report and resentation

Thanks giving week, family gathering, and little progress on the bender.
This week we focused on generating the final presentation and the 1st draft of final report.

The report was fairly long and time consuming so extra work will be done after finishing the report.

Week 12 updates

Update to the bender,
What is created:

• 2 dies for 2 different radii
• metal arm for bending
• Bending table
• support block
• one measuring block
• roller/caster

They will be assembled to perform the bending. from the testing, every thing looks successful so far except the die for bending the 1/4 in aluminum bar needs to be refined so we don't have to band the flat stock several times to complete one curve. 

week 11 die switching mechanism

This week me in and I couldn't manage a time to meet, so I stayed home and did some design on the quick die-switching mechanism since the bender is being built at his house. I did some research about expandable die, similar to a transforming table where it transforms from a small circle to a larger circle. This mechanism require extreme precision and internal design. So what I think is most suitable is to make multiple dies with different desired redii and develop a quick switching mechanism to quickly switch out different dies so the future bending and testing can be done easily. Below is some sketches of the design.

Week 10: individual writing assignment #2 and plotting 1:1 scaled drawing.

The second individual writing assignment is due this week on 11/9/2016. I worked on that as well as the plotting the actual curve onto multiple pieces of paper.

From previous week, i confirmed that the intended curve radius from last year was 20". After some research on how plot 1:1 drawing, I used Sketchup to make the drawing and export it as a PDF file. then use adobe PDF reader to print the drawing as a poster in Sketchup does not allow me to print with multiple paper.

Result was successful:

Week 9 - measurement of previous team's product

I measured the curved aluminum of the 3 corners of the track. the forth corner is missing so theres no data from it. I measured it using a compass and a ruler. I took 3 measurements from each bent aluminum and averaged them. Aluminum#2 and 3 is somewhat consistent but aluminum number 1 had a reading of 22.625" radius that is not acceptable. I assumed that the previous team did not have a consistent machine that do the bending.