Week 12

Week 12 Update

For this week, we wanted to focus on manufacturing. Although the track has been moved and we can start building, we still needed to ensure that we would be able to have our third rail manufactured. One of our goals for the school year was to get the third rail design finished and manufactured and as of today it looks as if this is going to be feasible. 

We received an email that ensured that we would have the third rail 3-4 day from Monday 4/22. David reached out to several manufacturers in order to get quotes and we were lucky enough that Master Metal was willing to do the job and donate it. 

For Thursday 4/25, we expect to go out to a Home Depot to pick up wood that we still deem necessary as well as bolts and screws. We have decided to order the necessary bolts and screws online in order to save money. As of now, it does not seem likely that we will be able to build it completely, but we wanted to at least get our materials and track started. 

Week 11

Week 11 Update

For this week we were able to finish up the moving of the track. Thanks to the help of everyone this past Wednesday, we were able to make the move. Below are some images that were taken during the move. 

Since presentations will be taking place this coming week, we will be planning how we are going to build the track. As it has been mentioned, David is incapable of helping out with too much manual labor due to his broken collar bone. However, we are hoping to receive some help from some of the teams that are not doing much. Furthermore, we have gotten in contact with a manufacturer and are hoping to hear some quotes very soon. We designed an extra third rail that take the form of a tube rather than a diamond shape. This could help ease our manufacturing issues if they do arise. Below is the new third rail design. 
Furthermore, David has decided to take over the manufacturing portion of this assignment. He has gotten in touch with a couple of companies in order to ask for quotes and manufacturing abilities. We hope to have a manufacturer bend this within the next two weeks in order to meet our goals for the semester. We just got work that we will not be attending Maker Faire. However, we will continue on with our work as needed. 

Week 10

Week 10 Update

Just before Spring Break, David suffered from a broken collar bone. Due to this, a lot of the building/moving of the track responsibility fell on Evelia. However, on Monday 4/8, we were able to move half of the tracks. We still have another half to move but are hoping to get that done as soon as possible. We understand that we are behind schedule on the building. 

We have also run into some issues with the manufacturing of the third rail. Nearby manufacturers are not able to bend our third rail. We are thinking of obtaining a 2x2" beam that we would cut into angled sections and weld together. Evelia will be taking care of this design. Our second presentation is posted below: 

We would like to thank Josh, Ty, Alan, Justin, Oscar, Luis, Daniel and Jonathan. 

Week 8

Week 8 Update

For this week, we had planned to move the track. However, we were not able to complete this task due to rain and unavailability of the track. Since our focus for the rest of the semester is to build the track, we are stuck doing little to nothing. We are taking advantage of this time to get ahead of other courses as well as redefining our design. 

The following week is spring break and we are planning to be on call for anything that comes up. Again, our focus for the rest of the semester is to start building the track so that we have something for Maker Faire. We also want to get a manufacturer to get our third rail finished/bent.