Week 4: Drafting Designs

Half Scale Suspension Team 2017-2018

I came up with these concept designs revolving on being a fully passive design. The reason is because a passive design is a system that directly uses natural energy (such as sunlight, wind, temperature differences or gravity) to achieve a result without electricity or fuel. Whereas an active design is a system that uses or produces electricity.  

Furthermore, a passive design tends to have zero operational costs and are often valued for their simplicity and aesthetic appeal. On the other hand, an active system although they are valued for their accuracy and functionality they tend to be regularly maintained and replaced. They may also have a higher operational cost and environmental impact. 

Below are my two concept designs with their pros and cons. What the group examined carefully among the drafted designs is if they solve these basic problems:

1.              The leveling of the pod car

2.              The associated swinging that will arise with accelerations and decelerations of the pod car.

3.              The unleveling of the pod car caused by the uneven distribution of weight of the people in the cabin.

Concept design 1 is chosen for the simplicity and flexibility that it seems to allow for adding on what might be needed to take care of problem 2. and 3.  What’s needed is further analysis so that rapid prototyping can begin.

Concept design 1

Pro: 1. Self leveling by gravity 

Con: 2. Needs closer inspection of associated swinging 3. unleveling of the pod car due to uneven distribution of weight of people.

Concept design 2

Pro: 1. Self leveling by gravity and 2. possible associated swinging due to accelerations and decelerations of the pod car taken care of. 

Con: 3. unleveling of pod due to uneven distribution of weight of people. Also the redesign of the pod car itself and more materials that may be needed to created such a support. Size of such a design.

Week 3: Concept Designing

This week, we prepared the Lightning Talk Presentation for the Spartan Superway team to give feedback on our project description, specifications, and most importantly our end goals. After looking into the previous Half-Scale suspension team final report on what where their specifications and end goals we decided to stick for on meeting one in particular specification that they did not achieve all the way. The main specification is to have the pod car remain level with respect to gravity while transversing on inclines and declines of 17 degrees.

After our Lighting Presentations my team and I got the chance to meet with the half-scale team from the summer. They explained to use that they worked on getting the bogies to work together and gave suggestions on what they believe would be the best option. For example they said to look into bell cranks for a combination of active and passive suspension system. Our team will come up with some design iterations for next week and get some input from Dr. Furman and Eric Hagstrom.

Week 2: Group forming and Task

On week two we were assigned to our designated sub-project teams for this years Spartan Superway work. The Team I am in is the Half-Scale Suspension team with my group members Joshua Moreno and Colin Wong. One of the primary objectives for our group as discussed with Dr. Furman and Eric Hagstrom is to create some kind of leveling system for the pod cars that will enable a comfortable ride. Currently the pod car will ascend or descend with the same slope as the rails which means the passengers will experience something similar to a roller coaster ascending and that needs to be fixed with a passive or active suspension system. We hope that our design will be able to solve this problem as it is our primary objective. Things to consider as we set up our Lighting Talk presentation is the specifications we need to address for our objective to be fulfilled.  I have started browsing the archives of past work to understand what worked and what didn't work for the previous academic groups that where in the Half-Scale Suspension team.

Week 1: Introduction

Salvador Hernandez

Email: salvadorthernandez@gmail.com

Introduction
I like making short term academic goals and checking them off as I go so that I can make new ones, each one bringing me closer to my career goals. As I advance ever so closer towards my Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (Graduating May 2018), my classes are becoming increasingly challenging, yet more captivating in the material. Attending San Jose State University is such a blessing because of the knowledge that professors and peers share with one another. I always aim to learn something new every day and pursue what I want by communicating well with others. Since people will spend almost three-fourths of their life in the professional world it makes logical sense to do something that will enhance your life fruitfulness. My career goal is not just about making progress to get ahead day to day, but also do learn new things and accumulate new experiences because it adds to richness in thought and knowledge. My ideal career is one in which I can use my engineering profession to contribute to innovation that will help society flourish in an efficient and eco-friendly way. As an analogy, I had an amazing opportunity working for Play-Well TEKnologies for over a year as an Engineering Lego Instructor leading dozens of courses myself while inspiring young innovators to work together and tackle exciting objectives. It has helped me prepare for my future plans by solidifying my desire to want to give back to society. I want to continue that gratification I saw in those young innovators when they created something working together. This is why I want to work on automated transit networks and SPARTAN SUPERWAY offers great opportunity.

A Little Background
I believe that the most special attribute that sets me apart from everyone else is the strong drive I have to always want to create or implement something better than there already is. This drive I have is a result from the curiosity I have developed ever since I was a young boy playing with the iconic Lego pieces. My dad, a US Army Soldier Veteran who specialized as an Army Vehicle Mechanic, is my role model because he has an aptitude of figuring out what’s causing the problem to something simply by being patient enough to learn how it needs to work and applying a solution himself. This attribute has developed in me naturally, especially after seeing how he partook in remodeling our house from a one story house to a two story house. Tearing down the old house and seeing how to build a better, bigger house really captivated me in terms of the hard work and design considerations that went into the build. The construction had left a surplus of materials left over and my dad supported me in building my own tiny home in the backyard. Needless to say, I was eight and I had built a tiny home the size of a small bedroom with a window, water proof roofing, insulation, and electricity using a few tools. I learned so much on that build from basic geometry to structural support to safely operating power tools. I have always thought of myself as an inventor even though I was really experimenting with mechanisms that have already been built, but for me its more about learning as much I can because it is a joy to me and that is my advantage over others. For example, both in middle school and high school I broke science records by making my self-powered mechanical car surpass the 2-meter distance goal by a staggering 24 meters over, which I got academically awarded for; and by making a 20-gram balsa wood bridge capable of holding the target weight of 100 lbs., which mine withheld a limited 1165 lbs. because the school ran out of weights., respectively. Thinking intuitively is something I encompass because it pushes me to design, develop, build, and test mechanically the creative ideas I think of. I like to believe that I was molded by the engineering aptitude as I grew up. Even till this day, I have loved every struggle for what I have learned, especially team working with peers in the field of engineering.