09/ 02/15 Meeting

After the meeting, I went to my station at full scale system and met with classmates to discuss our parts for project. We agreed on fail & safe system, brake and bogie system for our group to work on. We spent some time to obverse and study the bogie system, then we wrote down the things we need to work on to improve the system. In addition, we brainstormed the ideas for fail & safe system and wrote down the things we need to work on later. The meeting was very meaningful because we were able to come up with a group and decided on the things that we need on together. Furthermore, we were able to get to know each others more. Moreover, I did some readings about Spartan Superway  and old reports of students to learn more about the project and how it all started. I learned that Mr. Gustafsson of Beamways AB, a swedish company, who traveled across the countries to meet with San Jose state team and came up with the design of Beamways Superways Guideways back in 2004. The main advantages of this design provided single rail with transverse supporting rails, 20 mm steel without heavily or costly I-beams and curve track made of thin steel. This design eliminated the major disadvantage of 2013 model which involved cantilever sections. In 2014 model, the major challenge that students faced was defining wheel placement top enable bogie-selected guideway switching for suspended podcar design. At switch, bogie must travel over a groove in their way rolling surface but allowing support wheels to  roll over such a groove caused wear on vehicle and discomfort for passengers. On the 2015 report, he design team managed to create a robust switch track section with more safer and smoother ride.