Spring 2018 Week 6: Presentation 1 (cont.) + Manufacturing

February 28, 2018

This week, the teams who didn't present on week 5, presented their projects today. Once the presentations finished, the track team gathered near the welder to practice on some welds. After much trial and error, the team decided to delegate the welding responsibilities to Bryan so that he could weld all of the support pieces. Kevin and Angelo worked to prepare all of the hot-rolled steel flat bars by drill pressing all of the holes so that Bryan could weld the nuts on them to complete the leveling system for the supports. Bryan also worked to chamfer the edges of the hot rolled steel flat bar by grinding down the steel with the grind wheel found in the SSDC.

Spring 2018 Week 5: Presentation 1

February 21, 2018

This week, our team presented our first major presentation of the semester. During this presentation, we highlighted our current progress on our project, as well as changes made from last semester. The major change that our team agreed with the Small Scale Bogie team was to reduce the track width from 2 inches to 1.5 inches. Decreasing this gap will reduce the clearance gap for the bogie. 

Overall, the presentation went well, but Ron suggested that we improve on Assertion Evidence for slide 5. 

Spring 2018 Week 4: More Prepping for Welding

February 14, 2018

This week, the team continued to finish up prepping the support section materials for welding (Figure 1). The configuration for the leveling system can be found on Figure 2. Dan from the Full Scale Bogie team also found time to demonstrate to us how to properly TIG weld. However, due to our group's inexperience, we were unable to complete any support sections. Even with this minor setback, our team hopes to complete welding all the leveling systems of the supports in the coming weeks. Lastly, our team is also preparing for our first major presentation of the semester.

Figure 1: Steel Flat Bar Prep for Welding

Figure 2: Leveling Configuration of Support Section

Figure 3: Angelo and Bryan Grinding the Steel Flat Bars

Figure 4: Kevin drilling a bore into one end of the steel flat bar

Spring 2018, Week 3: Arrival of Support Section Parts

February 7, 2018

This week, the parts for the support section of the track arrived in the shop. To prepare for welding, the team has begun grinding the flat bars (Figure 1). With help from a member of the 2017-2018 Full  Scale Bogie team, we hope to begin welding next week. We are still awaiting the arrival of the aluminum bars from Midwest Steel and Aluminum.

Figure 1: Cold rolled steel flat bar

Figure 2: Square Tubing for Support Section

Figure 3: Nuts and bolts needed for entire track 

Figure 4: Cement mix for support section