Week #15

Today, we meet for our final day of instruction of this semester.

With the fabricated wooden pieces ready, we needed to create footings so that the structure could stand up. Fortunately Winter was able to contact a Civil Engineering professor and set up a day and time to get our wooden columns fashioned with concrete footings.

Winter, Claude and I met up with this professor and he squared us away with one of his students to help create concrete footings for our wooden columns. Claude left the CE lab to work on designed the clamps via solidworks on his laptop. Winter and myself stayed to help and learn to process of creating concrete footings by mixing the concrete. The whole process was quite enjoyable since this was both Winter and myself's first time every being exposed to any concrete mixing.

Luckily we were able to finish with the final prototype and brought it to the final class session. During the final class session, everyone presented information in a show-and-tell manner to the instructors.

Good Luck with Finals & Happy Holidays!

Week #14

This week the team had to complete the final presentation, work on the first draft of the final report due later and complete the final prototype. This week was very hectic and stressful, but the team was able to get everything done. Everyone completed their parts on the final presentation after following the grading rubric and its structure.

After we finished creating the presentation, the final prototype had to be created. Winter and I fabricated wood pieces on Friday evening. We were only able to get half of the columns completed by the time we had to get kicked out because it was getting late.

Finally, later Friday evening the first draft of the final report was due, so everyone completed what they could.

Week #12 & #13

This week, we have freshly laser cut materials for our second prototype and now our plan is to assemble everything. We created this prototype to show how they could interlock and connect with each other similarly to how puzzle pieces connect. Now, the team understands the best route of connecting the columns together, This was an important process to go through so we do not run into any complications if we were to work on the metal sheets on our own.

Later this week the team met up with Scott Bryant from Vander-Bend. Vander-Bend is a metal company which has worked with previous members of the Spartan Superway before. The team was accompanied by Dr Furman, Ron Swenson and another sub-team at Vander-Bend's location.

For the 13th week, the team continued to work on the bill of materials in preparation for the end of the semester prototype for the class.

Week #11

This week we were asked to create another rapid prototype to show how columns could interlock with each other if the metal sheets weren't long enough, to get a longer column size. The team agreed to get together and meet at the ME106 lab to laser cutter this design for proof concept of it working. Claude was teaching us how to use the laser cutter, so the team learned a lot. After we laser cut the pieces, began to see how everything fit together.

Week #10

We finally presented today. After all of the stress of completing the presentation, it's finally done. After our presentation, we really narrowed down what we needed to do for our project at the end of this semester, with only a couple of weeks left. Our main focus is the columns, footings and beam supports. All three of these things should be integrated together, since they're all simply pieces of each other. For the end of this semester, we're going to try and fabricate these features by using a thick cardboard, just to get an idea of how we're going to put everything together. This is important for next semester, when we're actually going to be using sheet-metal, or other sorts of expensive materials.

Here's a link to our presentation: Presentation 2

Week #9

We had our presentation date pushed to next week, so it was sort-of a relief for the whole team. Of course, after watching the teams before us present, we were able to pin-point their weaknesses and continue working on our presentation. Some members on our team were still confused with some calculations, so we had a meeting with Dr. Furman and Eric 2 days prior to our presentation day, on Wednesday.

Dr. Furman asked me to do more calculations which compared different types of column supports with the columns that we're going to use. We were using a hollow cross type of column, while I compared those calculations with a hollow cylinder and hollow square column.

These calculations and comparisons were timely, especially with a vibrations exam that happened to be on the same day as our presentation; however, I was able to complete what Dr. Furman asked.

Week #8

This week, we began preparing for our 2nd presentation about our progress. During the class session, the team broke down different aspects of the presentation into equally divided divisions so that we're able to fully cover most of the grading rubric. I quickly jumped onto the calculations part of the grading rubric, because I'm more comfortable working with equations, calculations and most importantly - numbers. For the calculations, my main goal was to try and use given parameters from our contact in South Africa. With these parameters, I was able to solve for the Modulus of Elasticity, through using Euler's Buckling Load equation.

After the class session ended, we had an outside class meeting to continuing working on the PowerPoint as a group at the MLK library, from 3-6pm on Thursday.

Fortunately, also on Thursday, Claude was able to get the laser cutter to work with the help of the IT guys and Dr. Furman - and cut pieces for our rapid prototype to show the class.

Everyone is stressed out for the presentation approaching this coming Wednesday.

Week #7

During this week, we had to meet up at room 189 for half of our lab meeting. In room 189, we attended an informational presentation about how we should write our report papers. After the meeting, the team gathered at the design center and met up with Ron about new information from South Africa. Ron gave us a lot of useful information and opened our minds to the possible ideas with how we should go about constructing the full scale track. Also, we were given properties, via a magazine, of the steel that we're going to use. This information helps us calculate weight stresses and thermal expansions. We're still waiting for access to the ME labs to start laser-cutting our newly found prototype idea. Also, the new guidelines for the 2nd presentation are finally posted, so we're beginning to develop our 2nd presentation.

Week #6

This week we've finally lifted the weight off of our shoulders after presenting to the class our progress so far. A link to the presentation can be found at the bottom of this blog post.

During class, we were able to visualize how we're going to construct the column designs with Dr. Furman's help reading some CAD drawings. We cut up paper material of the pieces we need to laser-cut and put everything together. Everyone finally was able to see what we're going to try to rapid prototype for preliminary testing. Once everyone went home, we were to research more about different aspects of the project that we'd like to focus on. I continued my research on a type of suspension and if it's still a viable decision for our track.

Link to PowerPoint: Full Scale Team Presentation 1

Week #5

This week we began to brainstorm ideas for our rapid prototyping. Fortunately, we were able to gather some confidential drawings about a similar design from a South African mining company.

While brainstorming we came across many questions:
How we're going to do it?
What section of the full scale are we trying to prototype?
What material are we going to use?

These were answered during this week:
We're going to use a laser cutter from the campus labs.
The column structure/supports.
Cardboard stock sheets primarily.

Also, our presentation about our progress to the class is next week, so more work on the presentation was done. After further reviewing the guidelines, we were missing some important information so we gathered once again later in the week to complete these missing components.

Week #4

During our class meeting, we shared all of the ideas we had via Solidworks. We all liked the CAD drawing that Claude drew, so we mainly stuck with his idea. The following week we had to prepare for our first presentation for the class. Each member is assigned to complete different parameters of the presentation guideline. I was tasked with the research of which type of suspension support would be more ideal for what we're trying to accomplish in the full scale track. By the end of the week, I've concluded that cable stay suspension would be more proficient vs. a suspension cable support. Lastly, the presentation is constantly being updated according to the guidelines.

Week #3

This week, the Full Scale Team once again met up with Ron before he left for his trip to Europe in a couple of hours. The meeting consisted of news from his contact from South Africa. We were able to see pdf's of CAD drawings from the company, Milotek. With these pdf's the team was able to come up with some ideas as to how we should try to create our own Superway. A big thing that the Milotek company had which our team never really thought about, was the design for the footing, support posts and beams for the Superway.

After our meeting with Ron, the team had many discussions about the design of the support beams, footings and posts. Which brought us to a various number of questions:
1. How would we want to design the beam?
2. Would we need precautions around these posts in populated areas?
3. What types of protections to the posts and surrounding unknowns are needed?
4. Do we want these posts to essentially "break-away"?
Many questions came about, but we haven't come up with a single answer yet.

By the end of this week, we decided to have each member of the team create their own prototype of the support posts through the ideas given to us in class and brief research about the topic.

Week #2

This week, we met up with Ron to discuss what we're trying to construct for the full scale track team. We went over a lot of ideas about how we're going to construct a 24 meter long track. Instead of going the whole 24 meters, which is the ideal design from column to column, our team is only going to work on a 10 foot section of the track and try to come up with tests to understand different elements. These elements consists of vibrations, strength, materials, sturdiness, rigidity, etc., for designing parameters in preparation of an actual 24 meter long track. Ron also talked to us about the Futran - Milotek company from South Africa and how they're constructing their own Solar powered automated tram. We were able to finally visualize and comprehend what we're trying to achieve with this Spartan Superway. With these notes and a good talk with Ron about what we're trying to do, we decided to look at already existing models and ideas from the past and gathered our own thoughts together for what is to come next. For the remainder of the class we just made brief sketches and organized our ideas as a team.

Rough sketches below:

Success and Fails from the Past, Full Scale Team

Kevin Maligaya

Fall 2016/Spring 2017

Full Scale Track Team

After viewing the progress from the August 10, 2016 Civil Environmental Engineering Team, I was able to really understand and flesh out what they were trying to do with their aspect on the Spartan Superway. There are all kinds of information that's useful for people trying to pickup where they left off, like my team. Their main purpose as a team was to try and figure out the best way to get from the main SJSU campus, to the South SJSU campus. Their main problem was the already existing infrastructure - freeways. Interstate-280 is right in the middle of these two destinations. This is a huge problem because we don't want to spend so much money trying to extend the Spartan Superway up-and-above the already existing freeway. This team's goal was to specifically tackle this challenge, which was all documented in the pdf that they've left behind. Although there are many useful information, some adjustments could be made to help someone new to start off smoothly from where the summer civil engineering team has left off.

There are many inconsistent 2-D CAD drawings throughout this pdf. Although they're there to help illustrate what they're envisioning, it sometimes becomes unbearable to look at because of its inconsistency and flat 2-D figures. These inconsistencies include having CAD files with either white backgrounds or black backgrounds - having this fixed to either white or black instead of both would have made the presentation of their ideas much smoother to focus on. One can easily tell that the CAD files with black backgrounds have more experienced engineers than the plain CAD files with white backgrounds. Also, with CAD files, the different colors and lines comes out better when the background is darker, like black. Also, some of the CAD pictures include title blocks, while the others do not. This is a small thing, however it is apparent to viewers like myself and is portrays a very inconsistent flow throughout the pdf. Also, since, most of the figures are in 2-D, perhaps dedicating some time to create a 3-D version of their vision would help the viewers really see what they're trying to do - like an overall plan, with the Spartan Superway. Also, refining more of their plans into much more concrete evidence and documentation would really help propel the Spartan Superway and its progress. This is where my team should be able to pick up where they left off and continue working on this problem and much much more.