Week 23: Back In Action

Academic courses resumed Thursday of last week, which was the signal for work to resume. No building has been performed as of yet, due to a family medical emergency as well as rearranging the shop at home. There are a few updates regarding the information from other teams that was necessary.

1. No material was ordered by the track improvement team or the solar team before the break for what they requested to be built. The track improvement team stated that they would have a material order placed last week.
2. Details are yet forthcoming from the solar team on the ribs they are requesting. A concern is that no details on the plans for the solar panel mount have been made available as of yet.
3. Track column heights may need to change, according to mounting requirements by the solar team. Thanks to the previous year's track setup, it is fairly easy to change the columns used to support the track. However, there is no additional material in the shop with which to create new columns so material should be acquired as soon as possible to allow for work to proceed.
4. The vehicle positioning sensing subteam did not have their corrugated metal strip fabricated externally, and are pursuing the creation of it in-house. They asked for advice and recommendations on how to build gears that would work to their tolerances, and I will be working with them to help get the details sorted out.
5. Plans were for the corrugated metal strip to be glued to the track, but the method has not yet been tested according to the vehicle positioning sensing subteam. Tests should be performed soon to ascertain viability.
6. The vehicle control team still plans to place magnets flush with the track, which will require drilling large holes (+0.75"?) into sections of track. Though not impossible to do, it will require time and precision, but details on the locations of these holes are lacking at the moment.
7. Track mounting brackets are planned to be 3-D fabricated with plastic. Analysis showed that the brackets should be strong enough, but I have only seen one test piece thus far.