Initial Considerations

During our first week as a team we took the time to look over the work of past Guideway / Track teams to see what work had been completed, objectives that had not been achieved, and recommendations that they had to future teams.

The 2017/2018 team originally aimed to design and build a full scale track with a curved section from metal. They were not able to fully achieve this due to their time constraints for manufacturing as well as the work load being handled by only two people. They had to stop design of the curved section of track and had to build a full scale model out of wood due to budget and manufacturing constraints. This set them back, but also allowed future teams to have a concrete idea to continue from. The wooden model is going to be used for analysis and understanding of the concepts laid out by previous years. It will continue to inspire us as a team and lead the way to finalizing a track.

The 2018 summer team built off of their design and worked towards making a junction where the bogie could change tracks. The issue with this design was that it was planned and built with the hope of adding it to the wooden model that had already been built. Our intention is to continue on this idea and optimize the design.

Taking these findings into consideration we have decided that it would be best for us to fully design the junction of the track to be made in metal, as well as a continuing curved track section. Our hope for the year is to be able to finalize a working design that we can fabricate from steel, is funding dependent, and that is fully compatible with what the Bogie and Wayside Power teams develop this year. We are looking to work closely with everyone on the other teams in order to ensure that our Guideway will be a success.

Below is our first presentation as a team: