Week 12 (04-18-18): Welding For Last Support Components

On Monday, the team met up and needed to address some of the issues that we had with the welder. Kevin was in constant communication with administration and Dan (from full-scale bogey) to ensure we were taking the correct course of action. Kevin and I took a trip to Praxair to retrieve a new tank of Argon for the remaining welds. After coming back and setting up the welder, I started and finished the welds necessary for the support structures. I encountered some issues during this process as I never found the correct way to properly weld these two components together due to the differences in thickness of the square tubing and the sheet metal. If I utilize too high of a current, the sheet metal would have a hole burnt through. However, if the current was too low, there would be no penetration of the square tubing. Even after completing 80 welds, this process was not mastered and still need to be cleaned up through other methods that will be looked into.

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Week 14 (05-02-18): Finishing up the Supports & Putting the Track Together

Last week, I ground down the welded support parts that attach to the track. I finished 20 of these parts and it required a lot of patience since grinding down steel requires some time. I even had a collet for the Dremel tool break on me since the diamond tip Dremel-bit pushed the collet to open up throughout the duration of the grinding process. By trying to close up the collet to secure the bit, one of the collet's prongs broke. After these parts were completed, I started drilling holes into them to ensure that they would fit into the whole track assembly smoothly. I used the drill press and some of the brackets that Kevin finished printing. The end result of these components looks like the following image: After the support structures were put together, we assembled the track fully for the first time. Although it was a small assembly that reduced the length of the track, due to removing several straights, it allowed for the other subteams to test the bogey and controls....

Week 15 (05-09-18): Final Presentation

This week, we gathered at the Student Union to finish up the last presentation of the semester. We met up several times to ensure that our last presentation had the proper flow and clarity so that anyone who hasn't encountered Spartan Superway will know the scope of our project. Most of the time was spent ensuring that all of the work we did this semester was covered comprehensively. We even included a master slide system and an appendix section for all of the miscellaneous FEA Analysis and manufacturing questions that members of the crowd might ask. The last presentation of the Spartan Superway Track Design and Manufacturing team is shown below: Now it's time to get ready for Maker Faire!

Week 9 (03-21-18): Creating The Turn Sections & Cleaning Up The Concrete

This is the week before Spring Break and the team is motivated on gaining some headway with this project. The last couple of weeks we have mainly been doing preparation work to get some of the components of the track completed. This week, however, Kevin worked hard to complete the curve sections of the track with his bender mechanism. The completed part can be seen in the figure below: Based on last week's work, the team poured concrete into the concrete molds, found in the image below. This week, the team took apart the molds and cleaned up the concrete that sits on top of the leveling mechanism of the supports. Since some of the molds allowed minimal concrete to spill over, the team needed to break the stray hardened concrete. The finished leveling system is shown below: The team has spent a lot of time in the shop and hopefully, we are able to use this break to regain energy in order to finish strong.

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

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