Week 10 + 11: This is the End

Hey y'all,

This is the last post I'll be making for my Baja internship. It's been a fun ride, and I've learned a lot of practical skills along the way (and I hope I helped out some too). To everyone who has helped in my journey, either by showing me how to use the machines or introducing me to the many crooks of the shop, I thank you for taking the time out of your day to bring me up to speed. This was a unique internship and and feel glad that I was here to experience it. Everyone on the team seems dedicated, hard-working, and bright, and I know that these attributes will bring success at competition this June. Honestly, I couldn't imagine a better group of characters to lead this team, and I hope everyone sticks around next year to help the next batch of interns.

As to what I've been up to these past weeks, three weeks ago I missed a week of Baja to go and visit colleges out of state. Since the original agreement was that I'd stick around for 10 weeks total, I decided to continue interning for Baja for eleven weeks instead of the standard ten. On the Tuesday I got back, I helped make a new skid plate for the car. On Thursday, the team was attending a SAE event in Phoenix, and I came to watch them present. That day, I helped load the car into the trailer, and strap down the poster boards so that they wouldn't move about when the vehicle was in motion. After all this, we weren't allowed to bring the car inside the hotel because of the fire code, but still, many people came outside to look at the car. Teams of Formula, EcoCar, and Baja from five different universities gave presentations, and the event was catered. Here are some pictures I took of the event:

(From left to right: Coleman, chief engineer; Nick, team manager; Jeshua, e-CVT; Brad, powertrain)

The next week, I came in and worked as usual. Tuesday, I helped screw in the new skid plate (that I helped make) and wire the emergency stop buttons to the engine. Thursday, I helped align the wheels, do suspension inventory, and clean the shop. Then I went to the weekly meeting for Baja and heard about the plans to go to competition this June in Illinois and Kansas. It's too bad that I worked be able to see the car up and running at competition, but at least I can say that at least one part I designed will be on the final car, and in addition my fingerprints will be on many others. I wish the team the best of luck in competition and know I will remember the spring of 2017 for a long time.

Goodbye and good luck,

Max

Week 9: What is car

Hi y'all,

This was only a two-day, instead of three-day, week for me, because Thursday I had to take the afternoon off to go to an appointment. However, despite my not-so-crucial absence, the car is really coming along. The car is now solidly in the testing phase, with the eCVT, brakes, and suspension being tuned for optimal performance. There still is the issue of having the rollcage painted, which not only requires that we deassemble the car and take off the panel bushings, but also that we forfeit the car for three days to have it be stylized. It may turn out that we just use spray paint instead.

When I showed up on Tuesday, the team was getting ready to present their accomplishments in Baja to a group of distinguished ASU people, including the Fulton family, to whom the illustrious engineering school in Tempe is named. I got to observe the presentation to these people, and thought everyone spoke confidently about their role in the club. After that was finished, we rolled the cars back into the trailer, and got to work. We started by loosening the engine by taking out the throttle line, emergency stop wires, and CVT, and unscrewing the bolts on the bottom of the mounting plate, so that Louis could drill new holes for the engine mount to shift it over slightly and make more room for the CVT. If you remember from my second post, I helped calculate the engine placement and its effect on the center of mass of the car, so I think the new placement will cause the engine to be slightly off balance, but the effect is probably negligible. Later that day, I cleaned up the shop, and helped Stephen take off the brake calipers and rework the brake lining. Unfortunately, I left before I got to see the brakes being bled, which sounds like a cool process.

On Saturday, I started by putting the skid plate on underneath the car in preparation for a day of testing. Then, I did inventory on the numerous spare suspension parts that have accumulated from previous years. After that, I fabricated caps for the lower front links, which took up the bulk of my day. Then, I watched the vehicle, and specifically the eCVT, be tested in the grassy area outside of the Sim Building. It was interesting seeing code being written on the fly changing the way the vehicle was handled. In my eyes, its a testament to just how dynamic the car has become this year.

Here's a picture of the presentation, with the cars lined up in sequential order:



Until we meet next,
Max

Week 8: A Million Pieces

Hi y'all,

I am glad to report that this past week has been a huge success in terms of progress on the car and preparation for the competitions this summer. It appears that the team is on track to making their April 29 competition deadline for California and well into their initial testing and perfecting of the car. As there was some uncertainty as to whether the eCVT would be ready in time for competition, the old mechanical CVT was re-geared and put into the car. In addition, the electrical, drivetrain, chassis, and brakes subsystems all completed their "rough draft" stage and began to be tested. The most up-in-the-air element of the current car is whether the brakes will perform immaculately for competition; thus far we've seen the current master cylinders provide too much pressure and cause the wheels to lock up while attempting to decelerate. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved shortly.

Without further ado, let's get into what I worked on this week:

On Tuesday, I helped recycle the brake light from the old car (which, let's be honest, doesn't really need to be changed, provided that it works) by creating a new metal seat for it and desoldered the wires connecting it to the old car. The rubber lip that was supposed to fit between it and the cup was deemed to thick by our chief engineer to make it on to the car, so the brake light sits flush between the aluminum and the bulb.

On Thursday, I helped fabricate brass weights for the newly retooled mCVT. After getting the cylinder to the right diameter, the rod was cut into equal-sized pieces, filed on the edges, and turned down to be an integer multiple in weight.

On Saturday, I scrapped Gold for parts by taking off the battery holder and seat belt holder. Then, I witnessed the car being driven and the brakes being tested, and for the first time saw the fruits of many members' efforts. It was rewarding seeing parts I designed up and running on the car. Here is a sneak peak of what the car looks like:

Once again, until next time,

Max

Week 7: Finishing the Car's Assembly

Greetings once again,

This week's objective was to get the new car up and running, which was a goal that had been originally due by March 15, but due to a number of unforeseen technical difficulties was delayed until just this past Saturday. Considering the new car was only a frame when I first began my internship, it has been exciting to seen the finished product come to fruition in just a few short weeks. With that having been said, without further ado, let's get in to what I was up to this week.

On Tuesday, I was assigned the construction of the foot box, the piece of metal that goes underneath the brake and gas pedals and provides a rest when either foot is disengaged from its pedal. I used Gold's foot box as a model for the current one, but took a few additional considerations when attempting to replicate it. First, it was requested that I use a thicker grade of sheet metal for this car's foot box, as a problem with the previous car's was that it became dented with repetitive use. In addition, the slightly different frame necessitated slight measurement changes that had to be incorporated into the dimensions of the new foot box. When all was done, I gave the flat foot box metal to a team member so that it could be bent at precise angles using off-site equipment. Since I did not know how much room to leave between the foremost edge of the foot box and the front panel of the car, when I came in on Thursday, I learned that I overestimated it by about an inch and had to cut it down once again. Thankfully, by leaving myself a little extra margin, there was room for error in case the piece happened to be the wrong length. Also that day, I took off the uprights from Gold and put them on the new car so that we could get it up and running. I then fabricated some brass weights for the mechanical CVT.

On Thursday, I helped Louis, the chassis lead, weld on the tabs to the car for the paneling and gas tank cover, which turned out to be quite challenging as the tabs were very thin and it was easy to burn right through them. We ended up cannibalizing the better, thicker tabs from the "test chassis." I also took off various parts from that car and grinded the welds off them. Finally, I deconstructed Gold and organized the parts to be used as spares when the team goes to competition.

On Saturday, first I found the percent difference in weight between the stainless steel uprights and brackets and their cast iron counterparts, which weighed significantly less, it turns out. Then, I helped Stephen screw the flex line for the brake's into the T cross with plumber's tape and generally replaced the old flex line with the new. There were a variety of hobshobble, miscellaneous tasks that I partook in that day as well, but they were so small and insignificant I won't bother mentioning them. For my final act of the day, I helped precisely measure and model the panels on the car for the purposes of designing the vinyl decals that will go on them. Late that night I finally witnessed the car in its (almost) final form, and was amazed at how quickly things had come together.

Like always, thanks for reading,

Max

Week 6: I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

Greetings,

This week at Baja the team was working hard to get the car up and running by Saturday the 18th and finish the design reports. On an unrelated note, I got a half-inch metal shard stuck in my index finger. All in all a pretty normal week at Baja.

On Tuesday, I spent the entire day working on just one part (or multiple copies of the same part): the comcups. The comcups hold the uprights into the com bearing, and have to be precisely cut so that there is no play between the two elements. I started by taking the base material, a narrow pipe cut into cylindrical slices by another intern, and first filed down the edges to remove any burrs that would cause the part to not seat properly in the collet on the manual lathe. Next, I moved over to the manual lathe to bore a wider hole than the pipe already provided, and then faced one side down so that it would sit nicely in the CNC lathe. Then, naturally, I transitioned over to the CNC room to have a computer execute cuts at an angle that no human could cut on a manual lathe. During this process the front side was cut down to length and then chamfered. 

On Thursday, I continued the work of Tuesday, and completed all 23 comcups by CNC lathing the reverse face of the cup, thus finalizing the overall length and providing a smooth inner "ledge" for the com bearing to sit on. Also that day, I helped take the wheels off of the gold car, and attended the weekly Baja meeting, where we discussed designs & colors for the car and potential sponsorship. Many members were not in attendance because they were finishing the cost reports that were due that day.

And on Saturday, by directive from Nick, we attempted to bring this year's car to fully functional status. We did this by cannibalizing many parts from Gold, and overlooking some superfluous features, like the back brakes (which are largely redundant with the front brakes but important for obstacle courses and off-road conditions). It was my responsibility to put on the brake calipers for the car; at that junction I learned that it was impossible to attach the back brakes on account of a flaw in the design which caused the brakes to spatially overlap part of the transmission. I also rethreaded aforementioned brake calipers to the requisite 1/4" 28 thread specification, as the current threading did not go all the way through. My last act of the night was taking the throttle and brake lines out of Gold to be used in the new car. Sadly, we did not get the car up and running as we had hoped.

If you've remained interested up until this point, thank you for reading my blog and I hope I have informed you a little about the intricacies of building a car. These posts will in all likelihood get shorter as I am afforded more single, monolithic tasks to preoccupy the majority of my day. It may make for less interesting reading, but just know that it is more materially helpful to the club when economies of scale are utilized and everyone is doing a set function.

Tune in next week for more,

Max

Week 5: I Remember Nothing

Hello,

Another week, another... I don't know, car? Anyway, it's that time of week again when I post my update on the comings and goings of Sun Devil Racing, and it must have been an especially exhausting week, since I can't seem to recollect much at all from what happened. Fortunately, I took notes, and like the movie Memento, will use those to reconstruct what transpired in the grimy den of the Sim Building.

On Tuesday, the electrical lead instructed me on how Arduinos worked, how to use a stepper motor, and on the operation of the linear potentiometer and Hall Effect sensor present in the vehicle. He also introduced me to Arduino coding, and gave me a crash course in C++ as it relates to that specific microcontroller. I am already familiar with the language, so picking up the ropes wasn't the hardest thing to muster.

In an out-of-the-ordinary kind of way, I came in on Wednesday to collaborate with a fellow intern (Alan) whom I don't normally see in the lab, as our "shifts" hardly ever overlap. I spent the day CNCing a part, fabricating the hub caps on the manual lathe, and helping around in other small jobs here and there.

Thursday, I helped craft a specially designed parts list for the purposes of documenting the construction of this year's car for future Polytechnic Baja teams. By the end of the endeavor, every part of the car had been scrutinized for material content and construction technique. After that, I was taught how to use SolidWorks, 3D modeling software for solid mechanical parts, so that I could begin to design some of the parts on the car.

Saturday, I spent the whole day in the manual lab (9 hours) fabricating plastic buffers for the joint that holds the uprights. The difficulty in the task arose more from the quantity of pieces we had to produce and less from the actual fabrication.

That's all for now, readers.

Thanks,
Max

Week 4: Making Progress

Hi all,

Another week in the Sim Building working on Baja. A sizable amount of progress was made on the car this week, I would say, if only for the lull in the clerical work that followed the successful completion of the cost reports. I met a couple new faces as well, which surprised me a great deal considering that I've worked with nearly everyone in the club on some occasion and thought that I had seen the entire roster of Baja members just by attending the weekly general club meeting (and the leads meeting, which Nick (the club president) graciously lets us sit in on).

When I came in Tuesday, March 2, Nick and Coleman were still busy getting the cost report submitted, so I spent some time with a few members here and there that needed a hand with their individual contributions to the car. Coleman, when he had reached a hiatus in his personal work, gave us a mock-up for a hub cap and told us to fabricate x4 of them with the manual. This was the first time I had just been given a mock-up and directed to produce a physical copy from the paper description; all times prior I had been given comprehensive verbal instructions and given the correct tool to mount onto the machine. Later, the brakes lead instructed us to mill a part for the brake spatula. It was very satisfying seeing the parts we made welded into a cohesive unit. Early in the evening, when the garage was mostly empty, I observed the eCVT testing, which compromised mounting a GoPro to the chassis aimed at the transmission, and then driving it on the road to obtain footage of the eCVT working. Very cool.

Thursday, the other interns and I spent the whole day in the manual lab drilling holes in a brake component that needed to be bored precisely down the middle and at a 45 degree angle. The work required a lot of setup and double-checking, and took up a lot of time. So much so, in fact, that we were forced to miss the weekly Baja club meeting.

Also, I got whiff of a rumor that this year's Baja team was making a website to add formality to the club in the eyes of the sponsors, university, and other teams, and that they were looking for an intern to help out. As this is right up my alley, I hope that this is something I can become involved in.


That's all, folks.
Max