Mt. Sac to compete in the AeroDef Manufacturing Competition Feb. 27, 2014

WALNUT, Calif. - Feb. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- https://carloscaddesign.jux.com/# (https://carloscaddesign.jux.com/)

AERODEF 2014
Our Project Goal
On December the 21st, students met on the campus of San Antonio College to discuss a proposal to design and develop a..

Mt Sac Simulator with Test Subject
Rudy gladly volunteers to be the first test subject to ride the motion simulator.

Sixteenth Meeting
Stress testing on this Saturday of February 8th! Today we decided to mount the chair onto the platform to run a few test to see how well the simulator would perform under certain conditions. We started the day off by making a few modifications to the platform hole pattern, unfortunately we had a few problems with the mill the day before and had to give up on drilling out the holes with the mill; however, we were able..


Fifteenth Meeting
The motion simulator is about 80% complete! We dedicated this day as a big push before the weekend, with extra attention to detail and exhaustingly long hours. As we started to rearrange pieces and finalizing the assembly process, we noticed that the female joints needed a specially made bushing in order to be aligned with the L bracket that’s located at the bottom of the top platform. This specially made part was made...

Fourteenth Meeting
While mounting the platform to the universal joint we saw a failure in design with the legs of the unit. With the legs sticking out parallel to the floor, we have collision at an earlier stage than anticipated; a new design for the legs has been proposed. We found a problem while plotting the hole pattern for the chair to the platform, the chair’s bolts are 11.75 inches apart from each other, meaning that our square...

Mt Sac's 2014 AeroDef team Simulator
Our first attempt to landing a plane with our simulator

Thirteenth Meeting
It's now February 3rd, we took a small break as for most of us were involved in the SkillsUSA regional competition. Today brings plenty of surprises and a mile stone in our success. We were presented with an already..
Working long hours has been fruitful in our prototype. this entry is a combination of January 28th-30th. Getting started, we resulted in using MDF again, although we are not doing any testing while MDF is in place, we are mainly using it to look at the proportions of how the platform should be built and to what size/scale it should be built in. The wood being used is just temporarily to as we find metal parts for...

Ninth Meeting
With the Mark III rev 1 passing the scaled model phase, we decided to up the scale and work out any flaws before building the final product. The prototype was designed with Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) as the main material, because it is the more abundant material we have in the shop; however upon further review, the decision was made to scrap a few of the departments shipping crates in order to have a more durable wood. MDF, as we came to find out, is extraordinarily brittle on the inside and its best if we do not use this material for..

Eighth Meeting
Today we unveiled the newest Prototype. Mark III, is designed to be significantly lighter than the previous models and has the ability to get the desired range in motion with less material. The secret of the Mark III is the universal join in the center, as of now, we are still debating whether we should have the joint above or below the platform. One advantage of having it above is for a completely different range of..

Seventh Meeting
In Today's meeting, we spent the day working on and reevaluating Solidworks models. We've begun discussing and planning the latest model, which will make it, the Mark III. During the planning phase, we wanted to try something new and make the entire module as small as possible, while still incorporating all of the other elements of the previous versions. Even though we have started a new model, we are continuing with..

Sixth Meeting
Today we brought in a foamcore model of the Mark II rev 5 and a model of the seat we plan on making.

Flight Simulator in use

Mt.Sac Aerodef team testing motion simulator (https://carloscaddesign.jux.com/2224764)

Mt.Sac Aerodef team testing motion simulator
Abdul explains how our motion simulator will work. This is the foundation and grid work that we will build upon.

Fifth Day
Today we were presented with the motors we will be using to drive our simulator. These motors were salvaged from a wheel chair: They consist of two 24 watt 30 amps with worm gears, a braking motor that will hold it in place when not in use, and a holding power approximately about 330 pounds. We estimate that by adding a few gears to the motors, we can increase the torque to roughly 900 pounds. In order to have a..

Fourth meeting
Mark II was a starting model; we referenced a model found online to estimate where and how the motors would come into place. Although, the design was not originated by us we used it as a stepping stone to model other designs. We studied the mechanics and learned from the flaws of the blue prints/model found online. Using SolidWorks; we ran some simulated tests and stress analyses to help us design our own and...

THIRD MEETING
Today we met in the workshop we are all giving our input. The first prototype is proving to be a great conversation piece. The brainstorming process is becoming more productive. Now we are throwing ideas out there including weight balance, what kind of projection method we would use and if we should have the design with the monitors on the base of the machine. We were also thinking that we should have a projector..

The Second Meeting
On December,28th, we discussed the concept in more in depth. We had a great concept that we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of. In the end we've decided that we should rotate it 90 degrees. We did an alternate 3D model on Solidworks. We did an analysis on how it would work. We are still in the brainstorming stage right now

Our Project Goal

On December the 21st, students met on the campus of San Antonio College to discuss a proposal to design and develop a multipurpose flight simulator in which the operator may switch between specified vehicles. The proposed idea was to have a single unit that can be easily altered to have a flight, car, surf bike etc. simulations. In addition, the idea was to have the unit be operable within the confines of one’s home.
We've decided to take advantage of the centerpoint of gravity, which means that we can use smaller motors for which help to reduce the overhead costs. We would like to make it about $60,000 cheaper than its commercial counterpart and appeal to a greater market. To help on lowering costs we've decided that we would like to produce a simulator with three motors instead of using six motors.
We quickly assessed the specifications that would be needed to make the unit operable such as, how the cabin or frame would be build and materials to be used. We each brought forth an idea of how it may be operable and the opportunity arose to select the job best suited for each student. Also a model was selected to use a reference to start our research on.