Week 1: Let's Get Started

The track manufacturing and process development team for the 1/12 scale model is a new team starting this year, and determining what needs to be focused on from the get-go is not yet entirely clear. However, several issues appear to stand out, according to accounts from teams working on the model from last year. Investigating potential changes by the bogie and track improvement teams and working alongside them to aid in a better potential track design will be paramount, and will most certainly provide direction for the track manufacturing team.

Certain sections of track were created by an external company (Vanderbend), and other sections of track were created in-house, leading to discrepancies and unequal end product which did not allow for uniform functionality of pod cars. We are to devise an in-house method for fabrication, or standardize methods to be outsourced.

Availability of stock for the project, and common means for its manipulation for use, shall be investigated. Additionally, any specialized processes, tools, or training that may be required to aid in fabrication shall be pursued.

Frequent discussion between teams will be encouraged to ensure pertinent details are shared and that each team has meaningful input to aid in the overall design.

Assessment of the bogie design and track design changes, and evaluation possible methods of fabrication for the planned designs this year are forthcoming. Assessment of available in-house equipment to enable support beyond the end of my time working on the project will aid those that follow in my footsteps.

Records of any fabrication methods will be used to aid in documentation for the eventual hand-off of the task. Ensuring that detailed instructions are provided for every process so processes can be replicated precisely will be helpful.

Some issues concerning the scale model will be highlighted in next week's post, after I talk with Kenny Strickland, a member of last year's small-scale track team.

Week 1: Beginning and Introduction

I begin with the Spartan Speedway project this week as part of the 1/12 scale track manufacturing/process development team! 

I have helped my dad fix or build things in the backyard since I was young, using mainly hand tools. The degree of error that could be tolerated for what we were doing was fairly large. One of the projects that I worked on when I was a kid included helping to rebuild a fence with wood boards, metal brackets, nails, and a hammer. As you can imagine, the nails could be located almost anywhere, meaning that precision and tolerance played almost no role at all.

Later on, I began to work on project that required more precision, such as soldering. When working with a circuit board for the first time, I was careful, but not careful enough. I didn’t pay enough attention to the iron and melted a previous solder joint to bridge two pins, creating a short in the board and frying a component. This was one of the many cases where I learned that precision is important and necessary to help create something to work exactly as planned.

During middle school, I was a member of the school robots team, and was responsible for ensuring that our robot was programmed to run well to complete the predetermined actions and courses for the inter-school competition. I quickly found that the team responsible for physically building the robot did not pay much attention to precision, as some of the components that they used for one side of the robot did not match the capabilities of the components used on the other side. The asymmetrical performance of the different components made it much harder to get the robot to perform all tasks as well as it might have been able to.

In high school, I helped create 3-D models as part of yet another inter-school competition. I was able to use a laser cutter for the first time, which I assumed would help with many of the precision issues that I had seen before. However, my calculations and rounding of numbers worked against me, as the scale to which I was building the model did not allow for assumptions as large as I had made. This lack of precision resulted in an abundance of extra work and time, which yet again showed me the necessity to work carefully when creating something, especially where precision is paramount.

Having learned from experiences such as these and many more, I intend to work carefully and precisely in order to aid the repeatability and reliability of the means to fabricate necessary parts for the project.

—Kevin Yoshihara