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

During this week, the small scale teams were able to present their work thus far. The presentations were split up into three parts, which were the introduction, the model design, and the overall progress (Gantt) chart that we've made out for ourselves. During the presentation, we gathered a few ideas an worked to incorporate those ideas into our design. For example, Dan thought about incorporating a leveling system that that incorporates screwing into the concrete and allowing us to create a leveling system with three points on a plane that will level the entire system. Hopefully we are able to work on these designs moving forward and incorporate them when we start rapid prototyping.

During this week, the main focus for the track team was to hammer out the last design decisions and tweak some of the decisions made from last week's progress. The main issues that we really have to address now is the support design since the model needs to be robust and can work under different scenarios. When bringing the whole model to an event such as Maker Faire, the ground may not be level and we need to address that, as well as incorporating a way to fasten the design onto the track. Moving forward, I'll work on the CAD this weekend and gather some ideas, that way we can incorporate them into the presentation.

During these two weeks, the track team has really worked on designing the track further by completing the second iteration of the track. In addition, there have been advancements in the switch design as we have been in close contact with the bogey team to make sure that there is good progress and communication is made between the teams. Some of the communication came with their model fitting into our track and being able to maneuver around our designed track since this iteration of the Superway involves a new design with a double rail design.

During this meeting, the 1/12th scale teams presented their projects and the goals for the upcoming semester. Presentation 1 described the scope of the projects, the design specifications, and the Gantt chart for all of the teams so everyone is able to stay on track for their projects. We are planning to finish our design phase soon and will begin rapid prototyping as soon as everyone is on the same page. Our team still has to complete some design work to complete on Solidworks, however, there is good progress. Within two weeks, the bill of materials should be published.