Week 18 Progress (2017-3-1)

On Saturday, February 25, the group met up with Eric Rosenfeld in the library. He explained some of the information from his summer research work, explaining how we could integrate the solar panels onto our possible designs for the Superway guideway.

For this image, Design #1 from Week 16 Progress, Eric mentioned that Snaprack probably wouldn't be able to attach onto the steep curve of the top bar. He suggested that we could do thin film (which has 17% efficiency), Standard Solar, or solar glazing.

He also spoke of the bogey team's work, because they use DC components with different lanes while AC uses an entire long line of components. The DC power needs an inverter while AC needs transformers. (And I apologize if this isn't explained correctly; none of us are too skilled in electronics) Currently, Wayside utilizes AC while the pod is DC (so it needs a transformer). We were playing around with the idea of the electronics fitting into that empty space on our column-rod designs, but it ultimately depends on the wayside and bogey teams. We thought of maybe placing the transformer underground and running wires to the electric components, but that wouldn't be as good for the pods.

Other than this meeting, we finished our Presentation 1, which will be viewable on next week's blog post.