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Small Scale Track - Tyler - May 18

The other small scale teams were not able to get their designs working by Friday night, so the first testing happened during the demonstration.  There were some problem areas of the track that we did not notice (and could not notice) before testing began, but these can be polished up by next years team.  The demonstration went well overall, and next years team should be well prepped to continue our work.  We will leave behind a fully assembled track, functioning track bender, and spare parts for them to work with.  It has been a good year with Spartan Superway, and we wish future years' teams the best of luck.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - May 15

This week we prepared for our showing of the track at our in house makersfaire on Saturday.  The track is fully complete, but we are waiting on the other small scale teams so that we can begin testing.  We are right up on our deadline now, so it is a daunting prospect going into our demonstration without any testing beforehand.  We will be returning on Thursday and Friday night for testing and adjustment of any problem areas.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - May 8

This week we started assembling all of the new curved sections of the track and new brackets to see how everything would fit together.  We were hoping that the other small scale teams would be ready to start testing, but they are facing harddrive failures and having difficulties coding, so hopefully next week we can begin testing the track.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - May 1

This week we obtained all of the rails to be bent and started into the full swing of manufacturing our new curved sections.  We have found out how to consistently get bends in our rails using a step by step process.  We are following last years advice and having only one person (me) manufacture the rails so that there is not measurement bias or manufacturing differences between users of the track bender.  We have begun receiving 3D printer samples from makerspace and found out that they are having great difficulties in getting us our orders, so we will need to revisit this.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - April 24

This week we spent some time grinding the last of the welds and started assembling the track bender.  We had several design challenges and some fit and finish issues, but ultimately succeeded in finishing the new track bender.  The process of bending the rails is not as smooth as we had hoped but we do obtain successful bends.  One of the challenges is that the caster wheels we are using are not strong enough to resist the force of the bottle jack pressing against them.  These will eventually need to be replaced, but they should do fine for this semester.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - April 17

During this week, presentations continued and groups finalized their designs.  Many groups are running into manufacturing issues with the makers space water jet cutter being down.  They discussed potential improvisations and how they will proceed.  For small scale, we had a monumentous accomplishment of completely finishing all of the welding required and we can now focus on assembling the track bender.
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Small Scale Track - Tyler - April 10

This week was the start of the 2nd presentation.  The presentations had to be cut short because of the move of the guide way from campus to the 115 Terraine St location.  The remainder of the class was spent purchasing our final materials and setting up reimbursements with Tinan.  We believe we have everything we need ordered.  Also, I found a family friend that can provide access to basic welding equipment!  Hopefully it will be enough for us to complete what we need to.
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