Team 25

There has been no significant change to the project scope with The Clutch City Engineer’s Search Rover (CCESR) over the winter break. That being said, there has been a couple design changes made, a small change to a testing apparatus, and some slight changes to the schedule.

 

In regards to the design changes, Some of these changes include moving the motors from the center of the frame (where they would require universal joints), to directly next to the corresponding wheels and using a gearing system to have the correct speed output. Eliminating the need for universal joints will lead to a direct increase in the power transferred from the motor to the wheels themselves. The team has had trouble finding motors that would service the rovers needs of high torque at low speeds without increasing the overall budget of the project. To get around this issue, the team will be employing a gearing system to help decrease the rpm of the rover’s wheels using the best motors the team can acquire in their price range. The team has constrained the rover to go no more than 3 m/s as to help make the rover easier to drive in a crowded and hectic emergency environment.  Another change being implemented is going from prefabricated wheels to creating our own. The wheels purchased were unnecessarily heavy and team 25 deemed it appropriate to instead design in house wheels.

 

The team is also making a small change to the ASTM testing apparatus used for the pitch/roll test. The team will build the apparatus scaled down to half its usual size due to the size of the rover and limited resources of the team. The team expects this change to not affect any of the angles the rover will have to traverse during this test but will make sure to go into a detailed analysis in later reports on the effects of this scaled down testing apparatus will have on the results of the CCESR. The slight change to the schedule has been pushing the end date on the testing from April 6 to April 15. This change in due date for testing will allow the team more time to make improvements to the rover during the testing time period as well as buffer time while still ending a week before the final report is due.

 

Over the winter break, the team ordered prefabricated parts such as motors and a battery needed to help start putting the rover together. In addition to this, team member James Arce has been keeping parts printing on his 3D printer as the team is starting the piece together the rover. Since the start of the semester, the Clutch City Engineers have made significant progress on the work of their search rover. As 3D parts have been printed, the team has found some simple design flaws that have been quickly corrected. The team is currently 3D printing with a low percentage infill as to not waste printing resources as the team is still trying to verify all the parts will fit together properly. As of January 25, the team has started printing parts with the desire to use them on the final prototype of the rover as the team believes they are close to starting to piece together the rover.

 

Figure 1 shown below shows the new motor-gearing system design to be used on each rover arm to have the wheels have a maximum speed of 3 m/s. All parts shown in the design picture will be 3D printed.

 

Figure 2 shows the current state of the wiring of the CCESR. The team will continue to wire the rover this weekend (January 26) and look to start analyzing the onboard controller of the rover soon.

​

For the plans for the next two weeks, team 25 plans to complete construction of the remaining validation apparatuses. The team is not ready to start testing yet because the rover is not fully complete. By the end of the next two weeks, team 25 hopes to have the rover almost assembled and ready for testing.

 

Since the start of the semester, the Clutch City Engineers have made significant progress on the work of their search rover. Over the winter order for acquisition of the prefabricated parts was done, and every part required for assembly has either been delivered or is due for delivery at a close date. In addition, the components that were to be printed have been started, and some updates and small changes have been made as necessary to remain with the initial criteria set by the team. Some of these changes include moving the motors from the center of the frame where they would require universal joints, to directly next to the corresponding wheels. Eliminating the need for universal joints will lead to a direct increase in the power transferred from the motor to the wheels themselves. Another change being implemented is going from prefabricated wheels to creating our own. The wheels purchased were unnecessarily heavy and team 25 deemed it appropriate to instead design in house wheels.