Status Check for the Class and Project (As E-mailed by Evan) April 18, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Course, Fabrication.add a comment
So today [Monday] was a great day and here's a list of our accomplishments so far Things Done:
Our sensors works
The servo motor works and responds to frequency
The flashlight has been cut and modified w/holes for mounting
The stepper motor is mounted
The parts have all been beadblasted and look sexy, can you say Cal?
The axle has been cut and modified
Everything fits so far
The website looks great
and the other 102 groups are jealous and scrambling
however we're still not done.
We still need to:
Finish the code for the stepper motor and be able to run everything simultaneously
Wire in the electronics nicely
Design and fab the mounting for the power and dsp
Choose and obtain our power supply
Prepare slides and practice the oral presentation
Finish technical report (compile cads, bom, specs and calcs, catalogs and appendix)
Prepare the bike (clean it, blue and gold?, Cal somehow in the frame)
Design and make posterboard ( this should look pro and tie into proof of principle concept)
Complete website( WIP)
Turn in receipts
We are about 2/3 done, but fortunately this last 1/3 is mostly the fluff. Friday is a big day to get the project working and during the week would be a good opportunity to jump in on the fluff stuff. Keep working hard guys and i think we can win this thing, if not we can be damn proud of a very complete engineering project.
Design Proposal Submitted Today February 7, 2006
Posted by Tyler in Course.add a comment
Here is the project proposal we turned in this afternoon:
Velocity Variable Headlights
Project Description
Much in the way many luxury vehicles employ headlights with adjustable yaw, it was decided to improve them further by changing their pitch and focal length. In previous iterations of variable headlights, the driver’s input through the steering wheel would angle the direction of forward looking headlights in an attempt to follow the curvature of the road (up to 15 degrees in some BMW models). However, this never addressed the change in speed of the vehicle.
When a vehicle is stopped or driving at a slower velocity, usually the driver does not need to see obstacles one thousand yards down the road. The same can be said for vehicles traveling upwards of sixty miles per hour or more – obstacles within ten to twenty feet are not as much of a concern as are those in the distance. To adjust for this change in attention, our group intends to design and fabricate a light system that changes in pitch and focal length based on wheel velocity. At low speeds, the lights would remain angled down and focused much like a flood light to illuminate as much of the immediate roadway as possible. As the velocity increased, the lights would angle upwards into a near high-beam position and focus into a spotlight configuration. The lights would be more efficiently used based upon the vehicle’s velocity, aiding the driver in identifying potential obstacles and changes in roadway conditions.
To fabricate and present this project idea, our group intends to build a proof-of-concept test bed on a bicycle frame. Rather than using a car and trying to interface with the engine control unit, it would be easier and cheaper to measure wheel velocity by knowing physical parameters of the demo bicycle and the revolutions per minute of the rear wheel. The pitch of the lights could be controlled by digital servos controlled by the DSP board supplied through the course. The focal length could also be controlled by rotating the bevel housing of a standard flashlight using another digital servo or by using a linear actuator to reposition the light source in the parabolic reflective housing. This too will be controlled by the DSP board.
Primary Consumer Groups:
Many new technologies that get ported out to the automobile industry tend to be implemented in luxury lines first (as is evident by BMW’s adaptive headlights). It is therefore reasonable to assume that any implementation in the automotive world would be on the shoulders of luxury car models and the respective wealthier audience who purchase the said technology. However, it is fair to say that this technology could find niche markets when used on touring bicycles (where weight is not as much a factor). And with almost any new technology, the military could possibly find a use on any wheel or tracked vehicles. While limited in target consumer groups, the project idea would certainly be readily consumed by these luxury automobile lines as yet another method of improving the cars’ selling points in an already competitive market.
