Week 5 (Sept. 26, 2018): Presentation #1 (Goals & Specifications) Reflection

-
The first of three Senior Project Presentations were delivered today. Please refer to our presentation, embedded below.

The objective of our presentation was to discuss our team goals as well as our refined, conclusive design specifications. Our presentation can be divided into five sections: (1) the overarching aspirations of the SPARTAN Superway team; (2) past semesters’ accomplishments; (3) how we, the current Small-Scale Controls Team, will improve, expand upon, and fix last year’s designs; (4) team member responsibilities for the 2018-2019 year; and (5) a Gantt Chart planning out our Fall 2018 timeline.

Although we stated, in our Presentation #1, that Patrick would oversee the software side of the small-scale model and David would be in charge of the hardware, our duties will more than likely overlap with each other due to the interdependent nature of controls and mechatronics systems. In other words, a circuit and a controller are meaningless without the hardware, while the hardware, such as actuators, cannot be controlled without a programmed controller and driver. And, to reiterate, our duties will also overlap with Small-Scale Bogie and Small-Scale Track, with more interaction with the Bogie team due to the bogie-motor connection.  

At the conclusion of our presentation, we received some feedback from Dr. Furman. He appreciated how we animated some of our slides – having highlighted arrows and boxes fade in to concentrate on a specific aspect of the image as the speaker discussed as well as having the speaker point to the entering arrows and boxes to draw attention to them, instead of having a static image. Dr. Furman also brought to our attention brushless gimbal motors, as is used for the cameras found on commercial drones. This would be another consideration for the selection of the motor to be connected to the bogie. Brushless gimbals are wound for very low speed (i.e. lots of turns of thin wire).

As stated in our Presentation #1, it’s always important to keep in mind the overarching aspirations of the SPARTAN Superway initiative, which is to fulfill the objectives spelled out in its name: Solar Powered (to offer a solution to end dependability on non-renewable sources of energy, such as petroleum and natural gas, thus reducing carbon emissions), Autonomous (to provide a self-sufficient transportation system that does not require a large maintenance team), Rapid Transit (to provide direct-to-destination transportation), Ascendant (literally, the track will be suspended above the ground to reduce traffic congestion, and figuratively, it is an emerging mode of transportation) Network (the system will be a network of tracks, railways, and PV panels). Altogether, these accomplishing these objectives will allow SPARTAN Superway to pave the way (figuratively, not literally) for the future of transportation and ultimately, the future of society.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 6 (Oct. 3, 2018): Coordination with the Small-Scale Bogie and Track Team

-
Image
Today, we discussed overlapping aspects of the small-scale system with the bogie team and the tracks team. The track team has settled on a design for the new track: a rectangular shape track with a Y-junction junction in the center to accommodate two charging stations, one at each branch. We are hoping to implement induction charging at these stations, which requires a 3.7 V Li-ion battery. Something else to consider is if we can use a transistor to amplify the current draw from the induction charger to speed up charging of the Li-ion battery and if we can use a boost converter (step-up transformer) for the brushless motor we will use. With the bogie team, we discussed motor sizing, as this selecting the appropriate motor would affect the force that the wheels would experience, and thus the design of the bogie. The force of the motor would be found by: (1) determining the power supply current output to the motor, I ; (2) converting the speed constant, K V , which is provided
Read more

Week 10 (Oct. 31, 2018): Battery Selection

-
Image
 UPDATE: Calculations for the induction charging and battery are found in the Week 14 and Week 15 blog posts. After finishing the last of the Presentation #2’s, time was provided to continue working on our projects. The first subject we wanted to address was to finalize the selection of our battery. So, we listed the pros and cons of the three main battery types: LiPo (Lithium-Polymer), NiMH (Nickel-Metal-Hydride), and Li-ion (Lithium-ion).   Sources: Roger’s Hobby Center | A Guide to Understanding LiPo Batteries and NiMH Vs LiPo Batteries - Which is better? and All About Batteries We eventually decided that we will be using LiPo batteries, like last year’s team, since they are more efficient and have a high energy density, along with their other benefits that outweigh their disadvantages and dominate the other battery types. Also, the fact that mini-LiPo chargers exist, such as the one below from Adafruit, will make charging more robust due to its compact design.
Read more

Week 4 (Sept. 19, 2018): Revised Project Objectives & Proposals

-
Today, Colin, a member of last year’s Small-Scale Controls Team and possibly our mentor/contact/guide, visited the Spartan Superway Design Center to provide us with advice, problems his team faced, features that they were hoping to implement but never got around to, and feedback on the design ideas we proposed.   Addressing our first idea of installing a differential drive system that would drive the wheels that move along the outer rail faster than the inner wheels when making a turn, preventing over-exertion of the servo motor steering the wheels when making a turn , Colin stated that we have two options: (1) Use two servo motors and incorporate the drive differential. However, Colin warned that he and his team used up all of their extra servo motors (about six extra) during their exhibition at Make’s Faire. So, he suggested buying three servos for each day spent at the Faire (three servos x three days = nine servos). If we want to pursue this idea, he suggested looking int
Read more