October 4, 2017 - Week 5 & 6

Week 4 and 5 have been on presentations of the specific groups in the Spartan Superway project. Today, we signed an NDA with Futran to obtain their drawings for their project in South Africa. We will be using these drawings to understand the parts coming in and the overall construction of the railways. However, the drawings we received were outdated, so we will have to see next week whether or not there will be more drawings. For now, I will work on creating the guideways, vertical supports, and the footings of our track.

So far, this will be a rough idea on how the footings and vertical supports will look, which can be seen below. The vertical columns will be fitted in place of these footings. Other designs have been looked into, and I may modify this as we move along with the project.

For the railways, we are hoping to get them verified on which drawings we will actually be using so that we can modify and improve on the structural integrity of the tracks, along with adding a third rail and switching mechanism. The drawing above depicts where the columns (squares) will be placed along the track. Currently we are looking at a rough idea of the 9 meter track length, and have placed the vertical columns at every 3 meters. By doing so, this will enable the track to be more modular and easier to set up and take apart.