Past Work Report

Small Scale Vehicle Design

Daniel Nguyen

Victor Mercola

Arushi Haniyur

William Rafael

Ben Watts

Scope of Work

The goals for the small scale vehicles is to research and improve the current small scale vehicle designs from past work. The design must be able to withstand a 3 feet drop, and be modular so that the parts can be printed in 6 hours or less using the design center’s 3D printer. The design must be able to accommodate all electronics, battery storage, sensors, and other needed components. Thermal loading analysis is needed to be done to determine cooling and heating requirements for the vehicles.

Past Works

Previous designs were made primarily to house the electronics with little consideration towards aesthetics and ergonomics. They were made mostly with the boogie in mind. Though the in-house 3D printer were capable of larger pieces, they were limited to a volume of 5” x 5” x 3”. There was a design made in 2015 for a full scale version. However, the previous year a lot more work was done toward the cabin design. The design was made with an eye towards aesthetics, and stress analysis was done to ensure that the cabin would survive a 3 ft fall. However, the parts were made in large pieces, and so manufacturing was a bit of problem. However, there were several design features future work could use.

Inheritable Features

The general design of the cabin from last year should suffice in terms of aesthetics to be used in this summer’s design. The work done included stress and aerodynamic testing, as seen in this report (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OzjmPIjkxsrxAL0TanE7K5cu5lEOPKo8). Changes that need to be considered are fulfilling the requirements of being able to house all the necessary components. Also, the design needs to be modified to be modular. Printing out the pieces should be faster than trying to print out all at once. However, they still need to survive the 3 ft fall and some redesign might be needed for cooling or heating requirements. It is also possible to create a mock prototype that include furniture and decor inside to present to interested parties. This can generate publicity in the project, especially to the general public.

Commercial Product’s Features

In terms of entering and exiting the vehicle, there are a lot of companies that offer automatic sliding doors; which may be considered in our design. Companies also offer consulting to help modify their products to fit specific needs (https://www.assaabloyentrance.us/en/aaes/assaabloyentranceus/products/automatic-doors/automatic-sliding-doors/, https://www.drsdoors.com/commercial/automatic-sliding/). Another design feature that can be incorporated are windows. Many commercial design uses large windows that encompasses entire vehicles, like the Supraway design (http://www.supraways.com/supras). These windows placement, however, will need to be stress tested to ensure that cabin will survive the fall test. On the other hand, adding windows will also probably reduce 3D printing time, as the parts will require less materials.