Week 7? 8?: The Process of Creating a Part (Part 1)

I honestly don't remember what week it is, and frankly I don't care.

This week's post is going to be a bit long, and will describe how I designed and made a part using Fusion360, the CAD software which I mentioned a few weeks ago.

I needed to make a part that would function as a stopper for the bottom of a model rocket and attach a parachute. After that, I modified the cylinder's dimensions, specifically the height. Then, I added an extension to one face of the cylinder using the Extrude button. Again, I can create the part first, and then modify the dimensions to make it fit. Then, I modified the chamfer (a slant) to the base, and the hole to the extension. I would include pictures, but Blogger apparently can't handle the file sizes. So here's the final result.




Next time, I will describe how I made it using a manual lathe.  

Week 6: The nuts and bolts of assembling the car

Bad pun totally intended.

Lesson of the week: Screwing and unscrewing nuts and bolts is harder than it looks. You think it's just taking a wrench/ratchet and turning it, right? Well nope. First, there's the fact that you need two wrenches/ratchets turn it. Using only one simply turns the nut along with the bolt. But, much more importantly, is that the thing you're trying to tighten simply won't cooperate. Sometimes, gravity causes the part to push on the nail. Other times, the holes don't line up, and a one minute task becomes ten as you try to align them.

By now, the Baja team is in full assembly mode. Whereas before Spring Break (ASU Spring Break is the week before BASIS's), most of the time was spent making/trying out new parts, testing, and creating the cost and design reports, most of our time now is spent assembling. For some of the more experienced members, this includes welding and cutting sheet metal, but for us interns, it mostly meant screwing and unscrewing stuff. Specifically, this included transporting the gear box from the old car to the new, installing the shocks (used to dampen the many bumps along the race course), and installing the suspension.

I estimate that by the end of this week, the car should be completely finished, with the exception of testing. Which is good, as Nick (the team leader) wants a full month of testing before the first competition at the end of April. Right now, most of the chasis is done, and the other parts (brake, engine, wheels, seats) still have to be installed. But that (I think) involves little more than what we've done recently.

Weeks 4 and 5: More work and Fusion360

While on-site, not much more than the usual happened. I helped make/supervise a machine make parts. The car's supposed to be finished by Wednesday, so that will be interesting.

However, what did happen was that a few days ago, I downloaded Fusion360, which is a computer aided design (CAD) program. For those of you unaware, CAD programs allow you to design parts, and often come along with more software that allow you to create instructions for machines to make the part. (This is known as Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software.) There are many out there, including Solidworks (which is used in most colleges) and AutoCAD. Fusion360 was recommended by the Baja people because it offers a 3-year free educational license. (So if current BASIS student who wants to go into engineering happens upon this, I highly recommend you downloading it.) I'm still not sure how all these softwares differ from each other, but they are certainly fascinating.

It just so happens that I also need the CAD software for a class I'm in. I've been using that to gain a basic knowledge of how these programs work. Below is a picture of something I created for it. I'm also using the CAM aspect of it to try and model how a machine would make it, and it's quite interesting.

Week 3: More lathing (latheing?) experience!

This week, we got much more experience using the manual lathe. On Tuesday, we prepped the cylinder shown in the picture below so that another automated machine could make finer cuts and create the hubs for the car. Our job was specifically to smooth out a side of the cylinder (the shiny section as shown in the picture below) by shaving off excess material, so that the second machine could grip it more accurately. This took around 4 hours.

(I believe this was Max's work.)

On Thursday, we spent about 90 minutes trying to unscrew the engine from last year's car in order to test a new system. (Don't judge. It's hard.) After that it was the team meeting, during which they discussed the incoming deadlines, especially the cost reports.

Week 2: I know how welding works!

Technically, I know how a lot of things work. Making it work is another story.

In addition to someone showing us how to weld, two big things happened this week. The first was that the cost reports for the car parts were due. Us interns took on the job of finding the parts used last year, and reporting the current price. It was fairly tedious, but whatever.

The second was a Open Night event, which apparently the entire Polytechnic campus is involved in. For the Baja team's presentation, we showed off the car (duh). We spent most of Thursday fixing up last year's car, installing the wheels, shocks, and other parts, because this year's car is still largely unfinished.

On Friday, I finally saw one of the cars in action, and it's quite impressive. At an intersection, there is a corner filled with rocks, and they drove it around. Despite the bumpiness, that car could still go really fast. (I know that is what an off-road car is supposed to do. I've just never seen anything like it before.)

Sadly, the car broke about two hours in. Apparently, what happened was that one of the tires slipped/went on a rock, forcing the tire off the legs (not sure if this is the right word). Normally, the outward pressure is simply supposed to turn the wheels in that direction to compensate, but this time, the driver had already turned the steering wheel to the max. Somehow, the driver managed to not notice that one of his wheels was hanging uselessly to the side for a good 5 seconds.

Next week (starting tomorrow), I'm looking forwards to going back to working on the car and hopefully learning more welding.

An Introduction

Hi. This is Alan. I'm interning at ASU, working for their Baja SAE team. As an AP Research student, I won't be doing a research project in conjunction, so I guess this blog will simply detail what I did, learned, etc.

Some basic information: The Baja SAE competition is a intercollegiate design competition requiring students to build an off-road car that can race for about 4 hours in rough terrain. All cars are given the same engine (for obvious reasons. Otherwise this would mostly be a big engine+reasonable durability competition.) Everything else, from design to manufacturing, is done by the students. The first competitions are April 27-30, and since the project leader wants 30 days of testing, we have to finish the car by the end of March. 
http://students.sae.org/cds/bajasae/about/

My job is to help the ASU people, so that they get stuff done faster. My guess is that I'll spend the next week or two (or three) learning how to use the machines, as well as other skills. Once I learn these skills, they said they'll just assign me tasks, so that I can basically come in whenever I want and know what to do. 

So far, I've been onsite three times. The first was just an introductory meeting, but in the last two, they've showed us how to use two of the many machines (the technical term is "lathe," which according to Google, refers to "a machine for shaping wood, metal, or other material by means of a rotating drive that turns the piece being worked on against changeable cutting tools.") The first one lets me shave off/flatten excess material off of a flat surface in order to meet height restrictions. The second is used to carve objects with rotational symmetry. (In the future, I'll try to take pictures.) It's quite neat how the machines work.

Well, I guess that about covers it. Bye.