Building A Rollercoaster

Today I went in again to work some more. I was unsure how to attach the wheels to the main frame, so I reached out to Paul Gregg, a backyard rollercoaster enthusiast and engineer (he also has his own blog and youtube channel ). He was very generous and helpful, and he pointed me towards his two e-books, which have a lot of useful information in them (physics calculations, stress test information, builds, etc.). I decided that the front wheels would have two degrees of freedom (on the z-axis and x-axis), and the back would have only one (on the z-axis). To accommodate the way the wheels needed to move, I had to alter my frame. (Clarification, not my legs)

I finally got back to working on my rollercoaster! I worked it out with my teacher, and we're taking all the precautions for the virus. I just did some minor things, just welding the wheel hubs in place, and making sure they were aligned. I also got to see my teacher's dog, Bowie. He's super cute!

This week I finished up my summer course at CalPoly. My group put a lot of work into our design. Everyone in their group pulled their weight, which was really nice. We worked really well together. I actually learned how to use a couple more programs this week, including Fusion 360. Fusion 360 is way more precise than Blender, and much easier to set a scale and measure things. Below is an animation of our ventilator design.                https://youtu.be/iTDs1t3k-Z8             

This week and next week I'm doing an engineering course from CalPoly University about medical ventilators. It's been pretty interesting so far. This week we worked on building just the basic model, to see how it functions (pictures below). Next week we're going to come up with our own concepts to improve it, to make it more portable. Also, good news! I've gotten clearance from my school to come in and work on my rollercoaster again! It's all up to my teacher and his schedule though, so I guess I'll see how that goes.