Week Five - Almost There!

Hey guys!  This week was ASU's spring break, so I spent several more hours there than usual.  However, despite having more time there, I have less to talk about.  Mainly, I worked on making several repetitive parts, rather than a few different projects.  

One of the first big things I worked on was making another fire wall.  Unlike the build last week, I only had to trace the old one and cut it out.  Unfortunately, it didn't fit very well at first, so it took a couple hours to make it work.  The purpose of the second fire wall was to use during testing, without damaging the "good one."

I also helped with the side sail panels, which are triangular pieces on the back of the car.  They had already been designed and cut out of cardboard, so I traced them on the metal and cut them out with the shear, just like last week.  

The skid plate also needed to be attached.  That's a big, thick, plastic piece on the bottom of the car that protects the driver from any mud, dirt, rocks, etc.  We didn't have a big enough plastic sheet yet, since the plate is probably the largest single part of the car, at over 5 feet long.  Instead, we took the skid plate off of Gold to use on the new car in the meantime.  

All the panels are held on by rivets drilled into tabs that are welded onto the chassis.  The skid plate required 13 (?) of these to be secured completely.  When the tabs are cut out of the metal, they are done using a water jet, which rusts them.  So as to allow for strong welds, the rust had to be removed using a sandblaster, which was another of my projects this week.  After de-rusting all of the necessary tabs, one of the college students was able to weld them onto the frame.

The last main job I had was the most time consuming, and mainly the one I'm referring to above when I say "repetitive."  Yesterday, the interns were tasked with making more plastic inserts for the wheel arm mounts.  Basically, there are metal rings welded to the front of the car, on each side.  They each have a plastic smaller ring fitted into them, through which is put a bolt that hold the wheel arms in place.  We needed to make more plastic pieces because whoever welded the metal rings didn't take the plastic out, so it melted and deformed.  

To make them, we used a lathe, and pretty much every type of tool.  We first faced the sides and the front of the cylinder to two segments of different diameters.  Then, we removed material from the front until the piece was the right length.  Then, we drilled a hole through the entire material.  Next, we chambfered the front, which is making a small cut on the edge to remove any small lip that would prevent the part from fitting onto the car.  We then used a parting tool to cut the piece off, and finally faced the back side of the part down to the proper length.  It took us 5 hours to make 4 of those parts, so that was most of the day.

This Wednesday is the (optimistic) deadline for finishing the car, so it can be tested.  Looking at it now leads me to two predictions.  Either:

(1) Everyone steps up and works harder than ever, and the car does indeed get finished in time.

Or, more realistically:

(2) The car doesn't get finished, and the team receives a stern lecture from the leads, which is what happened when the cost reports were due last month. 

Either way, this week is likely going to be my busiest yet, and I look forward to sharing the experience with you.

Cheers!