Adding Gas Springs to Our 3D Vehicle

 

    

    After finishing our teams video for the Shell Eco Marathon Virtual Inspection, Mr. Grosinger instructed us to make improvements to our designs to make it more realistic. He told me to fix the opening mechanisms for the body to make it able to come up and down with a realistic mechanism that can be used in real life. 

    The first thing was to search up what gas springs actually were, and then I figured out that there was gas springs in McMaster Carr. After finding the gas springs on McMasterCarr, I downloaded it to a 3D file and put it on Onshape.

        After downloading the file and placing it on OnShape, I was going to add the pieces to the vehicle but had to modify the pieces to make them move and fit in the places I wanted them to go. I added some sliders to keep the two pipes going up and down, as well as adding limiters to keep the pipes from going to far and staying in a certain range. 

 

    I finished the modifications and created little placers to place or screw in the bolts to keep the gas springs in place. The first place to add the stands was to be placed on the body and I used process of elimination to figure out at what height and width I should add the stands on the body.

    After creating the stands on the body the next thing to do was to add stands on the canopy and clam shell. I also did the process of elimination to get the right placement for the stands on the canopy.

    The placement had to be placed in the canopy frame to be able to create a realistic placement and to keep the gas springs from going through the body and the canopy.  The next thing to do was to create stands on the clamshell. 

    The clamshell was very difficult to create stands on since the program had some trouble creating what I wanted but then I got to do somewhat what I wanted. This was also very tricky to use elimination to find the placement of these stands but using a video, I was able to get the somewhat realistic plcement.

   I had to get rid of some parts on the gas springs and this allowed the gas spring to move without having to go through the body and also made the gas springs look more realistic. The gas springs were fastened into the holes that where made in the stands and threaded as well.

    I first placed the gas springs between the body and canopy. The gasp springs also limited the movement of the canopy which made the canopy only go up to a certain height without a limit.

    This new addition of the parts made the movement of the canopy more natural look of closing and opening. The same thing went for the clam shell but I could only make one suitable stand and actually made the closing and opening cooler. 

    I showed my teacher the new additions and was told I did a good job, I was also doing another project in class, because of hybrid, and made another blog on it. Here is the blog to my welding, past OnShape blog, and my linkedin.

Ronoldy's Welding progression

  When I started the hybrid part of the school year in 2021, I had started to use the welding tools in my Advanced Engineering class with Mr. Grosinger. My first lesson during the class was to learn the safety process during the welding process. Mr. Grosinger had instructed me to always put on a thick jacket that were stored in the class, so I would not catch fire from the hot sparks that fly around when welding. He also instructed me to use gloves to keep my hands safe, as well as wear a welding helmet to keep the strong UV rays from the welding to keep me from becoming blind. 

The next thing I was taught was about the stick welder I was going to use and how to use the machine without catching fire. I was taught how to replace the sick rod that is used to weld the metal together and what technic to use during welding to had a clean and even weld. 

    The metal was thick so Mr. Grosinger turned the voltage up to get the stick to weld better. The welder used a power source that was plugged in to the wall and was clamp to a table to have a ground.

    Mr. Grosinger also told me about the exhaust fan due to the smoke and heat the welding creates. I was told to turn this fan on so that I don't breath in the toxic smoke from the welder. 

After getting prepared to weld, I used an automated saw that I was able to cut off from a metal bar and then grind to make a better weld. Mr. Grosinger taught me how to use the saw and I was able to make pieces for my welding.

After cutting out some pieces, I started to grind the edges of the pieces by using a table grinder and creating a stronger weld since of the grind. He also told us to wear a face mask to protect our eyes from the sparks that fly from the grinder.

    After grinding down the edge, I put the piece in a vice and clampt them close together to the point where they are not lose, I started to weld through the line made and made a strong weld. I used almost a whole stick to weld the piece together and then cleaned the welds to make it shine with a wire brush. 

    After finishing the weld and cleaning it up with the brush, I was told to fit the piece with a hammer and test how strong my welds were. After having some experience with the stick welder, I was taught how to use the other welder, the mig welder that feeds the weld and melt wire onto the weld. 

    The mig welder had the same safety precautions as the stick welder but worked differently. Mr. Grosinger taught me how to use this tool and I was also instructed how to fix the welding handle if I get to close to the welding and build up residue on the tip. He showed me a tool that was made for the welding tool that has every ficture that you will need to fix the welding tool if you build up residue, release to much of the wire, or just to clean out the tip.

After spending some days on both welding tools, Mr. Grosinger instructed me to fix a stool that a previous student was fixing. I found some parts for the chair and got ready to fix the part I found by sawing off a part of the new piece that was torn and useless and replacing it with another piece that I would weld together and have a better piece for the chair.

While welding the replacement on the new piece, the welder was very strong and burnt through the metal fast so I lowed the voltage and tested the weld to check if it will melt through. The best voltage was the lowest and Mr. Grosinger taught me about welding for a small amount of time and waiting for it to cool down and then welding again, he called it spot welding to get a better weld.

I'll continue to weld on the days I go to school and gain better experience welding to have a great skill for future needs and for a probable career.

Shell Eco Marathon OnShape Ed

 

During the ending of 2020, in November, we started using the program OnShape: a free website that the team used for 3D programming and creating our Shell Eco Marathon car virtually due to the pandemic. Each team member was assigned a part to create for the vehicle, my part was the body, to get started I found an aerodynamic chart that helped me create a body design.

The best body shape we picked for the Shell vehicle was the streamlined half-body. This shape had the least amount of drag and we needed are vehicle to go a long distance and the drag coefficient was an important role for prolonging the cars miles. 

I also took inspiration from past Shell Eco Marathon events and their vehicles to consider into the Shell Eco Marathon car on OnShape. I came across a vehicle like the one in the picture and wanted to make a tail like it to make maintenance on the vehicle fast and easy.

The first version of the car design was a round tip and a long front to give the driver space to fit in as well as every other team members parts. This first design was a challenge to get perfect due to the fact that the website didn't allow for certain capabilities to work with the design. 

After discovering what a canopy was and what we could make for the vehicle, I cut the body into two pieces, the canopy and the body which fit together after attaching them back together. I then added clips at the tip of the canopy and the inner point of the body to attach the two parts realistically. I also made the canopy see through to represent the glass. As well as, made a new design that had a different shape to the point and could possibly help the body.

The clips would attach together and you would have to push them in to undue the locking of the two. The next thing to due was to make a attachment between the body and chassis, so I added bars between the body that I later holed to make it able to show the placement of attachment as well as the place I would place screws to attach the body and chassis together. 

The new design had flaws that had to be changed so I created a new body version that would be a single curve in the front and have a bigger end to accommodate for the engine and other parts that didn't fit in the first or second version of the body. The new body had to also be attached to the canopy and clam shell with a hinge that I acquired from McMaster-Car. I found a strap hinge that would go on top of the body and canopy so it will open realistically when you used mate to connect everything.

The new canopy would also be attached to a frame that i would use to add things and keep the see through part of the canopy in place. The clam shell would be in the back and be used to work on the engine and anything connected to the bulkhead in the back.

After attaching the canopy with the frame and clam shell to the body, I added mates to the body and parts to move up and down to show the movement. The clam shell and canopy showed realistic movement and I also added a floor that would contain the driver and the pedals that I got from Grab Cad, to control acceleration and braking.

The floor was an requirement from the event organizers for the safety inspection. The floor held the bulkhead and went throughout the body to cover the bottom. https://youtu.be/6HfVGd7nXjE

I also cut some holes on the side of the body to give a space for the steering to go through. I also made the body transparent to show the parts inside. 

After finishing the body parts and fitting all the parts into the body, we made a video thanks to Mr. G our Advanced engineering class. He got us to talk about our parts and also showed the parts movements. in this video:

https://youtu.be/da5SAmk3q_0