DavidMapapa

During week 5, each Spartan Superway group had 10 min to present on the different improvement they had made on their design, their design specification, the challenges they'll be facing and gantt chart of the project. The full scale, half scale and small scale all presented during the period of the time. The small scale control team had their presentation as well and we presented on: 1. We presented on what Spartan Superway meant, what the project aimed to accomplish. 2. Then we talked about last year team and all the hard work they had done. 3. We introduced our first implementation idea, which was the wireless charging method with the intent to replace the LiPo batteries with NiMH 7.2V batteries. 4. Secondly we presented the 1000KV brushless motor that we were planning on using instead of the brushed motor. Considering the fact that the battery were 7.2V total, and that a 1000KV=1000rpm/V the brushless motor would run at 7200rpm/V. 5. The expected speed of a pod car was dete...

On week 4 of Spartan Superway, we had to meet up with the small scale control team coach Colin. He was of great help, because he walked us through every single detail we had to know. He throughly  explained why they chose Python to build their GUI and how they used the Raspberry Pi to set up the android tablet. Colin pointed out that they had to learn Python on their own the same year. Which was helpful and encouraging because I do not have much knowledge in the language. He proceeded to talk about the improvement he thought had to be made from last year design. He explained that during Maker Faire last year they had run the brushed motor for three days straight and most of them would get damaged by it. Therefore he proposed that we should perhaps select different motors to display at the fair, which we decided to be brushless motors. He pointed out that the hardest thing would be to find gearing to slow down the speed of the motors, because brushless motor tend to rotate faster...

During the third week of Spartan Superway, we had time to get familiar with the small scale team in general and  what everyone else was doing. Since our coach was not there at the moment, we got to talk to Kevin Brazil, coach of the small scale track. He explained what they had done last year. He walked the whole small scale team through the small track task of the project. While doing so, he gave us information on the previous small scale control team as much as he recalled. Kevin walked us through the GUI app on the android tablet. He was not familiar with the code, but showed us how to navigate through the tablet itself. He explained that the podcast were connected via  Xbee Radio Frequency, he explained that the Xbee system worked such way that they were a master Xbee in a pod car and slaves in others. Lastly, Kevin roughly walked us through the process of applying for funds and make a proposal. He laid out the time frames they followed the complete their project the p...

During the second week, the small scale control teams had the opportunity to present on what they'll be improving during the both semester. Those improvements where listed during the presentation and they're listed down as: 1.  Add a differential drive on the wheel to avoid over-usage of the servo and the wheels  2. Add an inductive charging to wirelessly charge the pod car    3. Improve the Python Graphical User Interface and add some features to the software to make the interface easier 4. Improve the censoring system of the pod car in order to avoid collision during turns.

On the first week of Spartan Superway, I got to get familiar with the space. Professor Furman and Ron gave a presentation on what Spartan Superway was and what they envisioned for the project. Professor Furman, then proceeded to separate us in teams depending on our preferences. We then separated into our respective teams and got to know each other. The first week was also an opportunity for us to sign up for the Spartan Superway drive.