11/23/16

For this week, we finished our second rapid prototype, per Ron and Dr. Furman's request. The model was constructed out of a thicker cardstock material for strength and reinforcement, because the previous paper model was too flimsy to stay together. Regardless of this change, the model was still flimsy, unfortunately. Once we construct a model out of steel, the columns will hopefully behave much better.

This prototype portrayed how a longer column structure would be built. Ideally, the columns would be very long so that the Superway podcars would sit high above the streets and pedestrians below. However, it would be difficult to find a manufacturer who could laser cut and bend strips of steel around 30 feet long. So the purpose of this prototype was to model interlapping pieces to elongate the structure. This is visible in the two following images.

          

The second image shows how the inside of the model appears. Once filled with concrete, it would prove to be extremely solid and integrally strong.

On 11/18, we met with Vander-Bend manufacturing. I will talk about that in the next blog post instead.