WEEK 9 10/24/18

Week 9 

We presented our second presentation. It was mainly focused new design concepts that we discussed that we have implemented in our mechanical design and mechatronics and ideas that we plan on implementing. 

  

WEEK 8 10/10/18

Week 8

This week my teammates and I found the arduino code from last year. We loaded the code onto the present hardware. We tried to follow the guideline what the last year's group had to make arduino code to work to properly communicate with the present hardware. The second half of the class was concentrated on attending Dr. Furman's seminar on "Mobile Technology and its Impact"

Figure: Arduino Mega with LCD display and external 5V battery pack supply.

WEEK 5 9/26/18

Week 5

Our team presented our first major presentation of the semester. We got great feedback from both Dr. Furman and Prof. Ron. Here is the complete presentation.

Our team has defined goals and our our gantt chart serves as a great measure for us to track our progress and the progress of our senior design project. For the major part, our team will be researching mechatronics in order to understand what is there on the circuit board and how can we optimize it.

Solarius has officially agreed to sponsor our whole project. We have also begun purchasing required tools and materials and tried to maintain a decent bill  of materials. So far, the expenses have been well below the budget.

WEEK 7 10/10/18

Week 7

This comprised of more hands on stuff for me. I was involved with both the mechanical design and the mechatronics side of things. 

On the mechanical design side, I helped Hector and Karen to dismantle the bogie into its mechanical components and help them decide which components needed to be replaced and which components could still be used. 

On the mechatronics side, Me along with Mathew and Oscar tried to figure out which all components are there on the controls board and what the function of each component is. Our research consisted but wasn't restricted to wiring the stepper motor to the controls. 

Also, since we want to make fast progress on our project, our team agreed on times to meet outside class which would be at least 2 times a week outside class.

WEEK 6 10/23/18

Week 6

This week I looked more deeply into the driver motor torque calculations and updated the previous Google Sheet with new stuff. The calculations were basically regarding what would be a good speed to traverse the track and relating that to rpm and in turn relating it to motor torque. The results we found were that at about 17.63 rpm a bogie with 3.25 inch wheels would take about four and a half minutes to traverse the track which is definitely achievable.Here is the updated Google Sheet.

WEEK 4 9/19/18

Week 4

 As week 4 started, Oscar, our team lead got a great news for us. He talked to the president of his company and was able to secure them as a possible sponsor. 

Also, I started looking into Motor torque calculations as to how much holding torque is required to keep the whole system at a stop on the incline. We came up with a few ideas as to how to go about the whole process and what all factors and forces need to be considered. 

Then, I put all the equations and all the data required in an excel file and got reasonable results. Here is a Google Sheet showing all our calculations.

WEEK 3 9/12/18

Week 3

During the third week of the project, my team and I finally dig deep into the working of last years controls and bogie model. Our team, with Dr. Furman's help, looked at the mechatronics of the existing bogie and tried to identify which components connect where.

After that, I spent some time figuring how the stepper motor was wired on the inside to see which wires connect to which piece on the controls board. We made several attempts to open the motor and take it apart to see what the wiring inside the motor looked like but we couldn't figure it out. Simultaneously, I also kept searching online on how to wire a stepper motor to an Arduino UNO. We found some useful pictures which are shown below. 

By the end of next week we hope to figure out stepper motor connections to Arduino UNO.

WEEK 2 9/25/18

Week 2

The main objective that our team achieved today was to introduce our goals for the rest of the year to all the other Superway teams. We also gave a lightning talk presentation (linked below) to convey our expectations and objectives. 

Here is the presentation that we presented in front of other groups:



We also talked to one of the advisers about how to make the existing bogie and circuit board work. By talking to him, we gained useful insight about how to choose what we need to do first. He insisted that we should ask Dr. Furman for the resources and he also mentioned other people who had worked on the project in previous years who could help us figure out how to make the current bogie and controls work.