Since last week, I have thought about what to deal with the carts. Also we just received the previous year's small scale group materials. I had gone over some of them and had a clearer picture on what they have done. I learned about the materials used to build the cart and started to think how to redesign the whole cart to make the scale model look alike the real one.

One of the main goal is to show how the actual bogie system operate in the small scale model. Besides the wheels to lock the cabin on the rail, we want to add the switching gear design in the small-scale model. To do so, we can use a servo to connect to the mechanism and program the servo when to switch the direction. Hopefully we can reappear the whole bogie design in the model.

This figure is from the 2014-2015 Spartan Superway team's report. This design also came to my mind when I look at the model. Adding a servo to control the arm to stimulate how the real bogie switching gears work. But by adding this, the design has to be re-made to fit in the servo.

After the last meeting in the warehouse, I thought of what I can do in the small-scale model team. I looked at the small-scale bogie on Wednesday and I think it might be possible for us to build the actual bogie design in the small-scale. What I think is to add a servo and link it to the switch gears so that it can demonstrate how the switch gear works. Instead of changing the design, I also thought of the possibilities to add the fail-safe design to the small scale model. Like using brakes and ultrasonic sensors to determine the distance between two cabins and control the brake.

Introduction

Chin Man Bryan Ho
Bryan is a senior BSME student in San Jose State University with a concentration on Mechatronics. He is interested in big community projects like Spartan Superway. As an international student from Hong Kong, he see many improvements needed in current public transportation system in California. In this project, he hope to contribute to show the whole design of the bogie in the small scale model. He enjoys playing computer games and sports.