Jack's Blog for Spartan Superway

For this week's meeting, we were to meet up in ENGR 189 and discuss the formal report write up format from Dr. Du. She explained to us thoroughly the sections that were required in our final report and some additional tips. An example she mentioned was to write out numbers if they are less than 10 in our reports. After the meeting with Dr. Du, we scurried over to the Spartan Superway workshop to work on our project. Cheuk and I were able to meet up outside of class and begin our rapid prototype. We were able to obtain a DC motor from the 1/12th Scale Controls team. Additionally, we bought an Arduino Mega 2560, L298 motor drivers, joysticks and a sonar device that plan out to be implemented in the existing model. We were successfully able to set up the DC motor, L298 motor driver and joystick onto the Arduino Mega. Although we were not able implement speed control with the joystick, we were able to get the DC motor to rotate clock and counterclockwise depending on the direction the ...

Today's Spartan Superway meeting started off with welcoming Ron back from his trip in South Africa. Dr. Furman announced that the Full Scale and Half Scale teams would be presenting today. Cheuk and I eventually got to pitch our presentation about our upcoming plans and ideas to create an efficient controls system for the Full Scale model. We explained in our presentation about the impact the controls team has on Full Scales team and our ideas to improve the existing model. For example, we informed that it would be in our best interest to implement an anti-collision system by implementing proximity sensors such as sonar sensors onto the podcar. This allows the podcar to stop if the sonar was to detect an object in front of the pod car. In addition, we suggested the implementation of an remote kill switch for the podcar for safety precautions. We talked about purchasing a DC motor with an encoder for an more accurate way of measuring position as opposed to the hall effect sensors. W...

For this week, during the beginning of workshop, Dr. Furman and Eric made announcements stating that Ron would be back in town from South Africa the following week. Afterwards, we were separated into our respective groups to begin preparing for our first graded presentation. Cheuk and I listened to Shane and Kang, prior students who worked on 1/12th scale controls. Although Cheuk and I are not on the 1/12th scale team, we listened in because we thought they had to say would be insightful in getting our project started off the ground. Additionally, Cheuk and I talked to Dr. Furman and Eric questions regarding the contraints such as maximum speed and weight. We discussed in detail some of the additional features that would be beneficial on adding to the existing full scale podcar. For example, we discussed about integrating an kill switch for safety measures as well as an wireless controller for controlling the pod car as opposed to the autonomous set up. Dr. Furman was able to refer to ...

For this week, we presented a quick yet informative presentation about what our Full Scale controls team plan on working on. My personal responsibility in our lightening talk was to explain what a controls system is and the referenced the 1/12th scale models vehicle controls team. We did this because there weren't any previous documentations in the archive about full scales controls. I explained that in the input aspect of the system, the 1/12th scale model incorporated switches, hall effect sensors, sonars, encoders and RFID. For their output of their system, they used motors, servos and LEDs. Additionally, I briefly explained how they used an Arduino Mega as their microcontroller. Lastly, I explained to the rest of the team that our goal is to get our full scale pod car from point A to point B and vice versa in a safe and efficient way. After all the lightening talks were finished, we separated into our respective groups. Me and Cheuk talked about how we should continue researc...

In today's meeting, we met with Dr. Furman and Eric at our respective facility near campus. At the facility, we were introduced to the 1/12th, 1/2 and full scale model of the Spartan Superway. Dr. Furman and Eric assigned everyone to their respective groups. I have been assigned to work on the controls system of the full scale model for the Spartan Superway with Cheuk Kwan. We plan on getting in contact with the prior Full-Scale Team and reading last year's archives to be up to date with the project and smoothly transition into forwarding the team's agenda. For Cheuk and I, we will be concentrating on using a micro-controller to drive and control the bogey motor drivers and sensors to designate the pod to travel safely from one destination to another. Additionally, we plan on setting up our sub-team's blog and researching more about controls systems.