Piping (continued)

Yesterday, I began working on the tutorial for Pipe and Tube Routes. Today, the most important part of the tutorial was finished. The pipe was made curved using the spline and auto-route functions.

After the spline piping, the tutorial was completed.

Piping

Today, I began a new tutorial on piping and routing. As part of my quest to make a "U" design on solidworks with piping, this tutorial might be what will give me information on how.

I.R.L.

While Nick has been working on improving his abilities to further the design, I have been working with the mechanics team to complete the test chassis. The main body is practically done.
Next week, the wheel will be added.

Chase cutting pipe to match up the front end

The main supports are being welded to the bottom and top half

End of the Week Wrap-Up

To begin this week, I looked up a tutorial on surfacing on SolidWorks. The instructions taught me by having me build a nozzle using different functions: those functions were lofted surfacing, swept surfacing, split line, knit surface, filled surface, planar surface, revolved surface, trim surface, and extruded surface. Although I am not a master at these different functions, I now have a basic understanding of them.

Near the end of the week, my next challenge was to find a way to make a pipe on SolidWorks that could bend, similar to the shape of a U. I reopened SolidWorks Routing for the first time in what seems a while, but quickly picked up on it again. Next week I plan on continuing this challenge, since what I have found so far is unsatisfactory.

Surfacing on SolidWorks

This week I am starting on learning surfacing on SolidWorks. This can be very helpful for cleaning up the design model and blending surfaces together.

3-Surface Blend

Over the last two days, I have been working on the three surface blend on Mastercam, trying to figure out how it works. I have begun to scratch the surface but haven't yet figured it out.

2 Surface Blend

Over the last few days, I have been reading and learning 2 Surface Blend, which will be important for creating the shell.

Shell

Goal for the week:

Finish the shell for the Solar Car


Today, I read the tutorial for how to create a dome on SolidWorks. We will be using domes for the shell.

Framed

The support for the frame has been completed. We now have to complete the shell and wing.

Support the Goal

The support is still a work in progress so our goals are:

• Finish creating the supports for the frame
• Test them out in SolidWorks

A Solid Work

We do have a solid frame, but the supports are lacking. We are still deciding where the supports should be placed.

Can Solids Work?

Up to this point we have used MasterCam for the creation of solids due to a lack of skill in SolidWorks. Now with new knowledge, we plan on moving to the latter.

Goals

• Recreate the frame in solid works
• Add supports

Masters Can

The frame ended up being initially constructed in MasterCam. It will then be transferred over to SolidWorks

Solidifying the design

Goals

• Watch all the SolidWork3d sketch and weldement tutorial videos.
• Watch the Advanced Sketching - 3D Sketching videos.
• Apply new knowledge of SolidWorks to Mastercam wireframe design.

Things Change

The bullet like design is basically done with some editing needed in the axle distances
Half way through the week we discovered a new design.
We are currently experimenting with the new design: the tear.

The Sleeker, The Better

The design has to become more streamline and bullet like.

Goals
Finish new frame
Create a shell
Face the car (give it a 3D appearance)

End of The Week

I got the most recent design of the solar car to Jason. We will have to find out what the engineer thinks.
The master cam design was delayed due to mast cam being down.
However I have created a rounded front end. An I further shortened the car's length.

Always Tweaking

Goals

• Give Jason the file of the model car to send to the engineer contact
• Create a variant design of the car
• create a new front end
• make the car sleeker (round its edges)

Finished Model

The initial design is finally done. However, since the design is to-scale, Here are some issues with its size. Next week those final adjustment will be made and the final design will be complete.

Car with complete chassis. The wheels are to scale of what we currently have 20" front and 22" back.

Half Way There

The car design is almost done.  It generally needs to be cleaned up.

Goals

Add axle
Add a frame for the shell
Finish the front end of the car

A Third In

The development of the car design started rolling. The main chassis is basically at the point where it will be chained together in master cam. Next week, tweaking will be done to finish a rough model of the car.

This is a picture of the parts of the wire frame that will be bound together.

Setbacks and Obstacles

On the design side, the wire frame design of the future car was postponed due to lost files. The delay will hang over through the weekend.

In the time that we had to spare, we initiated in assisting on the actual build of the car. However, the tires were a complex situation to deal with, that absorbed more time than expected.

Expanding The Team

We recently experienced an expansion in the design sector.
Connor Pastore, freshman, will be helping us in creating the concept sketches that the solid model will be following.

At this point the chassis wire frame is half complete.

Friday the 13th

Design Progress

I began designing a wire frame version of the car in Master Cam, as Nicholas honed his solid works skills.

I also decided to work on a solid version myself, though it posed to be a task.

But that's all. Nothing crazy. 

It was just a Friday.

Congregation

The Plan

Mr. Martin got the team together and presented us with our ultimate goal: build two solar cars.
One will be a model, but it will also compete in the Classic Division.
The other will be the final design competing in the Advanced Division.

Our Goal

For now, we have to create the rough design for the car. Once that's done, we will refine it for the final product.

Our design is planned to be a modified version of the Electrithon.

Blogging and Goals

Blog

As of the beginning of this week, we started to keep a blog for our progress on the project. All updates whether they are on improvement or setbacks will go here.

Goals

1) Finish Researching Designs

2) Format Blog

3) Develop Team Bios

Day 1

And So, The Fun Begins...

On Friday, August 30, Jeffrey, of the mechanical team, and I began searching the internet for possible design inspirations for the SK2. We were looking for a design that was flat but also resembled the shape of a bullet.

These are model cars. They're flat and have curvature. We would want them to be more bullet like in the rear.