Bryan Oyan - 1/12th Scale Track Design + Manufacturing

This week, the groups for the full-scale and the half-scale teams presented their first major presentation for the semester. During this time, I was able to gain information about everyone's vision and possibly incorporate some ideas into our design of the track. Due to the time constraints, the small-scale teams did not have the chance to present their presentations so they will be moved over until week 5. After the presentations, Kevin and I met up over some dinner and discussed design concepts that assessed assembly issues. We are looking for this track to run smoothly while being able to be assembled in a timely manner, therefore aspects of the design are being discussed, and need to be finalized with our 3rd teammate Angelo. We are looking forward to presenting next week.

This week, the teams had spare time to prepare for the first big presentation of the semester. There were a couple of issues that needed to be solved with the whole 12th-scale team. The main source of communication, which is an online chat website called Slack, was established between the whole 12th-scale team. Everyone established that the teams needed to communicate due to the many components of the whole 12th-scale Spartan Superway Project. My team, the 12th-scale track team, talked about some of the design specifications that the bogey team since they are the main team that the track team will be collaborating with. The remainder of the time, the track team spent time gathering contact information and information about everyone's preliminary designs and working on the presentation for next week.

Based on last week's blog, the students were already broken down into their specified teams. We are now in charge of presenting a 5 minute lightning talk to show the class what we are exactly doing for  the semester. That talk proved to be really important and provided a common ground for everyone to understand the vision for this year's sub-projects. I didn't realize how much collaboration we are going to be doing, however with the layout of the track, there are plenty of things to consider moving forward such as the design of the track and improvements for future years so that they can easily pick up where we left off. Also, some questions raced through my mind during the lightning talk presentation such as the funding and the implementation of sloped portions of the track for future iterations of the track. Also, there are some issues that need to be fixed with the assembly of the track and how us, as a group, have to tackle the manufacturing for this track, that way i

This week, Dr. Furman introduced the instructors for Spartan Superway. After all of the introductions were completed, the teams were split up to their sub-teams for the upcoming year. I am going to be working with Angelo Banzon and Kevin Brasil on the 12th Scale Model. We are assigned to work on manufacturing and design of the track, as well as improvements to the existing track. While waiting on Dr. Furman and Eric to reach the 12th Scale Teams, all of the teams introduced themselves to one another since we are all going to be working in conjunction to complete the Full 12th Scale Project. When Dr. Furman and Eric came and spoke with the 12th Scale Teams, we were told our expectations for the upcoming year and shown what we needed to accomplish by the time of Maker Faire. We are still waiting on Ron to provide us with the drawings for the Futran Track for more details. Next week, we are expected to show our mission for this year's project through the assertion evidence method st