10/19-10/25

This week I have drawn up a couple sketches that would connect the modular pieces together. It was something we overlooked, but it does not hold us back or put us behind schedule. Our group also had a meeting with Eric Hagstrom, Professor Furman, Ron and Ned. It was helpful to talk with them and touch base on the direction of our project in relation to Spartan Superway as a whole. In the meeting, a tour of Vanderbend Manufacturing came up.

I attended the tour to get an idea of how manufacturing is performed. It was particularly eye opening as it made me realize the major difference between designing something and building it. All the major manufacturing methods were very interesting, however, I did not see any specific tools for manufacturing the track to our specifications. I talked to a sales associate and they assured me they they could manufacture the track for us. I got the contact info of several representatives of Vanderbend and plan to meet with them soon. I need to coordinate with my group when all of us would be able to go to their manufacturing center and speak with some of their skilled workers in designing the track. I think it would be particularly helpful to have the manufacturers give some input on the design.

Throughout the week, the brackets I drafted on Wednesday has had a lot of discussion within our group. This was because the upper guide track has a very limited amount of material to work with. As a result we discussed several iterations to try and secure the guide way to the bracket. At the moment every iteration has some pros and some cons but we think our final iteration will work, but is not ideal. We may try to revise it further next semester.

This bracket connects parts of the loops and will need to be bolted together for assembly and disasembly. This was a very quick draft I drew. Jez has drawn in it in Solidworks this past week.