Meeting-Weds Sept. 2nd

This was our first official meeting at the Spartan Superway project warehouse (between 3rd and 4th and St. John st) where everyone had a chance to see the current state of the prototypes. At the beginning of the meeting we went through the introductions of all of the instructors and mentors who will be guiding and supporting us throughout the next school year. The previous week each of the new team members/students (myself included) were tasked with doing a bit of research to familiarize themselves with the project; what has been done, what worked and what didn't work, and what needs to be done in the future to make Sparta Superway into a reality. For this meeting each of the team members gave a brief speech on some of their findings on the Spartan Superway, focusing on a particular area of interest. This not only gave everyone a more insight on the project as a whole, but allowed each of us to get a better idea of who we might be working with based on a common area of interest between different group members. With a group as large as this, where many of us haven't had the chance to meet each other, this was a great way to "speed-date" and figure out who would group together into the various sub-teams.

Once we finished all of the presentations, we toured the facility and familiarized ourselves with the work space and all of the current prototypes. After we got a good look at the shop, we broke into the various sub teams. I chose to work on the Full Scale model, more specifically the Active Suspension group. As of now, our members include Scott, Dale, and NJ for a total of 4 members. I was a bit surprised to only have 4 people take interest in this sub-team, as many expressed interest in the active suspension during presentations. However, this makes for a few less "moving parts" when it comes to meeting up and working together.

Currently, the suspension design for the cabin has some design flaws, and will need to be modified if not completely redesigned for this years goals of an active suspension. There are some ideas in place on how the cabin should behave when loading/unloading, as well as running up and down the track from station to station. however, unlike some of the other aspects of the project, there aren't any concepts from previous years' work on how the active suspension should be designed. This leaves the door wide open to new ideas that our team will need to collaborate on. Now that each of us have gotten to know each other and we can begin to find our individual roles within our team and start the design process that will challenging yet rewarding!