The group assembled to put together a presentation to demonstrate our knowledge of the AEV project. Essentially, an overview of the project, the background of the project, team goals, and the future plan was discussed within the presentation. The presentation was a summary of all that has been done up to this point, however it mainly focused on the broader aspects of the project.
The team has garnered information on how to make an AEV as efficient as possible on a single track system. The most valuable things that the team has learned have revolved around balance and aerodynamics. From the beginning, each team member’s design had focused on the aerodynamics and balance aspects of the project. The first and second design had the base model of the reference AEV used, and made alterations which focused on aerodynamics. The third design had the characteristics of a shark’s structure which focuses on aerodynamics in much the same way that an aeroplane does. The fourth design is based on the balance characteristics of an aeroplane. Also, based on the past labs, the group will focused on how to increase the efficiency of the programming to decrease the amount of energy needed while moving the AEV.
The two design concepts that the team plans to test will be the base design with a small adjustment in the balance of the AEV, and an elongated design from Design C in the concept screening and scoring. These were chosen in order to determine whether or not balance is improved by elongating the design.
The group programmed the reference AEV code provided in the lab manual to compare the sample AEV and the team’s design for the AEV. The table 1 shows concept screening and table 2 shows scoring. The team considered weight, aerodynamics and efficiency to determine how effective each design would be at completing the task. Other considerations were, the maintenance, durability, cost, and stability to determine the consistency of the performance. According to the tables, design B was better in every way, however design A and C were only good in selected parts that were considered.
| Task | Teammate(s) | Start Date | End Date | Time Expected |
| Update the portfolio | All | 3/10/2017 | 3/24/2017 | 1-2hr |
| Complete the progress report | All | 3/10/2017 | 3/24/2017 | 2-3hr |
| Design the AEV | Shane | 3/10/2017 | 3/14/2017 | 4-5hr |
| Design a base code | Stephen | 3/14/2017 | 3/24/2017 | 4-5hr |
The Team did not meet this week so there are no Team meeting notes.