Superway Senior Project

The full-scale track, bogey, and solar teams will now have regular meetings where progress is discussed in a group setting.  Details involving the track and certain design elements were discussed in the previous team meeting.  The 9 meter track will consist of two "L" beams to support the straight section, and one "T" beam to support the switch, as seen in the figure below.  The solar team has decided to implement a truss design to support the racking of the solar panels.  The truss will support a "shell" that will be configured with the needed solar panels.  The figure below does show the truss design, but not the shell, as the team is still in the process of designing that specific part.

Preparations are currently being made for the next group presentation, which is in approximately one week.  Points were lost in the last group presentation for not having adequate project specifics and not using the assertion-evidence method for some of the slides.  The group is going to make every effort to ensure that points are not lost again on these specific sections.  The 2nd presentation will be very similar to the 1st presentation, with the biggest difference being that the 2nd presentation will request that the team have a plan for "dependencies and contingencies." The team will meet throughout the week to make sure that the presentation is completed on time.

I made another sketch based off of a design that Dr. Furman showed the solar team.  For this design, the support for the panels is not connected to the track at all and instead stands on it's own support beams.  I left the latter half of the track uncovered by the panels so that people could see the main support beam.  In my opinion, the best aspect of this particular design is the fact that vibrations and movements caused by the cars on the track will have much less effect on the solar panels stability, due to the fact that the racking for the solar panels is a completely separate entity from the track support.