Week 4

After the lighting presentation, We have started to design and calculations for our project. Since we are the control team of the full scale, we don't have the money to buy all the full scale parts for the testing. Our team decided to do rapid prototyping to demonstrate the control of the podcar. We are planning to use Arduino as as the micro-controller for the control system. We are going use a small motor and some sensors to simulate the entire full scale control system. For calculation, our team need to calculate the required output wattage for picking a suitable motor for our project. We also ordered the parts for our rapid prototyping, so we can start working next week. We also have to work on our first presentation where we present our approach and ideas for the project.

Week 3 Lighting Presentation

In week 3, my group did our presentation where talked about the general idea of the control system in the Full Scale team.  Our main focus is to control the podcar to move along the track in a safe manner. We are also looking into way that we can improve the existing system because we have an operational existing full scale system in our working garage. We just got the contact information of last year team from Dr. Furman, so we can get connect with the last year team. It will be helpful since they can provide more details on the existing system.

Week 2

After the first lecture, I have been assigned to the Full Scale Control team. We will be focused on the the controls of the full scale cart on the track. We will work with three others team; Full Scale Solar Team, Track Team and Bogie Team. They are in charge of other aspects of the Full Scale Team Project. The picture above is a Full Scale track we have in our spartan superway garage. We also have files from last semester to read through. Then, we will have a lighting presentation about our team next week 9/6/2017. Other teams are presenting too, so it's going to be a good chance to learn about what students need to accomplish this semester.