Friday Nov 6 Update

A few things I've been working on since my last post

1) MIT Lemelson Application - I wrote 1,500 words to assist in the effort in applying for the MIT Lemelson prize.

2) Team Photos - I shot and edited our 2015 team photo and headshots for all of our 2015 Superway team members.

3) Presentation #2 - I presented with the wayside team to update everyone on our progress in designing a wayside system including voltage regulation and conductor routing.

Friday October 9th Update

A few things I've been working on since my last post.

1) Video Interviews with the Spartan Daily - Dr. Furman mentioned in class that we made the front page of the Spartan Daily. Some of you may have also seen the video produced by the Spartan Daily that was emailed earlier this week. I helped schedule these video interviews and offered my time to help in getting our project some more exposure around campus. I am still in talks with the Journalism students and we might do a second video in the Spring possibly around the time of Maker Faire.

2) Sub Team presentations - Since my last post I've spent a lot of time digging into the available information on existing wayside implementations for PRT and mass transportation in order to prepare for subteam presentations. For anyone that is interested there was one article in particular that I found to be very enlightening. It is an assessment produced by the Department of Transportation for Washington DC and I think it's beneficial for us to see how different technologies are perceived by the kinds of people who ultimately will make the decision whether or not our transportation system will get implemented. We can learn two major things from these types of publications. First, we can benefit from the extensive time put in by others to understand the state of transportation technologies. Second, we can get valuable insight into what effects the decisions of transportation officials. 

http://www.dcstreetcar.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Final-Report-August-1-2014-for-CD-SectionA.pdf

3) I'm planning a day for team photos with the help of Dr. Furman. We have another presentation due in two weeks and everyone should be looking nice and that might be a good day to do it. I will eventually be taking individual member photos as well, and if there is time I might try to squeeze this in on the same day.

Sept 22, 2015 - Update

Just an update on a few things I've been up to since my last post.

1) 43rd Annual Silicon Valley Electric Vehicle Show - I attended the event at De Anza college and helped present our 1/12 scale model. For those that didn't attend, we won an award for best student project :)

2) Bill James of JPods - I came to the meeting with Bill James and he presented a lot of really interesting ideas about PRT including some neat software packages that he uses to simulate network flow of pods, overlay travel time perimeters on city maps, and combine 3D modeling of pod track with google maps. He also introduced a competing technology to Hyperloop called ET3 which I hadn't heard of. Bill promised to get us a length of track and a pod to put up along one of the walls of our warehouse so we can familiarize ourselves with his technology. He also enlightened us on the ways that he is pushing forward legislation in other states to allow for the implementation of JPods.

3) Journalism student connections - We have some connections with students in the journalism department and they are planning to film a series of short interviews with a few Superway members so I have been coordinating efforts with them to set something up.

Wayside design options

After speaking with a few Superway team members about possible designs for wayside power, it seems that there are two prevailing ideas. The first is to supply wayside power by swapping the wheels on the bogie to a conductive material and using the lower rail as a voltage potential which is conducted through the wheels. The second potential (whether it be hot or ground) would be fixed to and insulated from any surface on the guide rail and would require a second method of contact such as a feeler or metal shoe similar to the way bumper cars conduct power through the ceiling. However, no one seems sure of the appropriate way to take the power from the spinning wheel and axle and get it into the bogie. The second method would be to simply duplicate the feeler or shoe so that it is used twice for both power and ground. This seems simpler as we won't have to buy new wheels or figure out how to draw power from the inner side of the spinning wheel/axle assembly. If the rail road tracks idea from my previous post works out, we could run two shoes off of the top of the bogie which are offset to hit the hot and cold rails.

Wayside Power

Reliable power is of critical importance to the operation of the Superway. The failure of a pod battery could leave passengers stranded, block critical transport lines, and prevent service to stations. Last year the scale model team made an attempt to implement wayside power using conductive springs or "skis" on the bogie, which would ride along on conductive train set rails. In last years documentation it was stated that this was "achieved" and there is a nice CAD mockup of the skis on the bogie. However there is no documentation of an actual physical realization of the system. After viewing videos of last years scale model in operation and speaking with some of the summer students, I've come to understand that the train rails were never successfully implemented. I need to get further clarification from someone who worked on the project in previous semesters but as I understand it there were issues both with bending the track around curves and getting the skis to maintain contact with the conductive track rails. While keeping in mind concerns about aesthetics, reliability, and increasing the visual similarities between the scale and full scale models, I have come up with a possible design solution for implementing wayside power this semester.

One key visual difference between the current scale and full scale models is that the full scale model has a covered roof structure above the bogie. Adding this roof structure to the scale model could provide a solution to the difficulties previously encountered with the train rails. From what I understand, the train rails didn't work on the drive rail or guide rail because they were mounted on a vertical surface. Train allow for left turns and right turns at appreciably small radii, but because trains can't make sharp changes in incline the tracks aren't built to be bent up or down at a very aggressive rate. When we mount the train rails on a vertical surface this means that we can make sharp changes in elevation but we can't make left or right turns sharp enough to match the design of the track. Implementing a roof structure on the scale model will allow us a horizontal mounting surface which will reverse this behavior. A second benefit of a roof structure is that the scale model will have a platform for mounting solar panels that mimic the design of the full scale model, increasing the visual similarity between the two and helping people to make the connection between the models and really get the big picture. Below is a sketch of the basic idea.

I've also thought at length about isolating the Guide Rail and Drive Rail as two separate conductive lines by creating some kind of insulating barrier in the conductive chain currently made by the brackets that suspend the guide rail. The challenge to this type of a design solution would be to find a way to create the required electrical insulation while meeting the structural requirements for minimizing deflection of the suspended guide rail. Polymers and ceramics are obvious choices for electrical insulation but neither of these seem to have the structural qualities that would be required for full scale. If the pillars of the full scale model were made from concrete, they might be extended to serve as an electrically insulated structural support for the guide rail, but this might be a more difficult solution and you would still have to worry about the possibility of shorting the rails through the rebar reinforcement in the concrete bridge. For these reasons, I think our best bet is to mount the train rails on the bottom surface of a roof structure.

09/02/15 Update

During Wednesday's meeting I spoke with several team members interested in the scale model and decided that I would like to either work on wayside power or controls, and possibly contribute to a side project on bird's eye optical tracking. I connected with Ernest Cabreza from the summer team and he sent me some of the scale model documentation which I have just begun sifting through. I also spoke with Ron Swenson about some of the work done in the past to document the project and possible ways to build upon that work. Since the meeting I have looked through some of the scale model documentation, plugged the Superway in the VTA survey, found some articles on vehicle following controls, and reached out to a contact in the animation department about a possible collaboration for future video production needs.

Introduction

Hello everyone, I'm Michael Hurst. I'm in the mechatronics focus area for mechanical engineering at SJSU and I'm planning to work on the scale model of the Spartan Superway. I've attended the senior project presentations for the Superway the past few years and I am excited to finally be able to contribute. Some of my professional interests include transportation, sustainability, STEM education, aerospace, medical systems, and controls. In my free time I like rock climb, mountain bike, and make things with my hands. I look forward to meeting everyone and putting our mark on a project with real world implications.