2025 Competition Chassis
As a second-year chassis lead, I am responsible for the development and knowledge transfer of this year chassis. This design cycle we are focused on improving CAE simulation work, improving physical testing/validation, and building up a documentation repository for future years. Additionally, I am responsible to leading an aggressive timeline in order to meet the teamwide goal of manufacturing a car sooner. So far, the I have piloted the chassis design to be complete in record time, leaving more room in our timeline for testing and validation. The chassis is scheduled to be fully manufacturedin mid January of 2025.
2024 Competition Chassis
As the chassis lead for the 2024 competition year, I lead a team of 3 engineers to develop the frame and packaging plan. During the design cycle, we reduced weight by ~5lb by optimizing tube wall thicknesses, improved packaging, and make the driver more comfortable by encorporating ergonomic data into tube placement. Using SolidWorks simulation I modeled torsional rigidity and iterated tube placement to optimize for stiffness. Using ANSYS Mechanical, I ran high fidelity simulations of highly loaded tabs to analysis stress concentrations and choose an appropiate plate thickness.
2023 Competition Chassis
During my first year on FSAE, I joined the chassis subsystem. During the design cycle, I primarily worked on iterating frame designs for increased torsional rigidity and reduced weight. In total, the frames weight was reduced by ~20 lbs, which is a 20% reduction from the previous year. The simulations done in SolidWorks Simulation and ANSYS Mechanical helped us reduce suspension compliance, and thus improving handling, all while making a lighter car. I also researched various methods for removable joints, and selected one based a comparison weights and stiffnesses evaluated in FEA. The design's torsional rigidity was validated with physical tests, which were yielded a 5% deviation from our FEM simulations. During the manufacturing cycle, I worked on designing welding jigs, enabling us to hold tight tolerances on critical compontents, like suspension mounting points. Additionally, I worked on designing and validating a bar to push the car, for use at competition.
Rapid React Robot
During the 2021-2022 season, I oversaw the design of the mechanical design and manufacturing of the robot as mechanical lead. In this position, I managed the timelines of 4 subsystems, lead system integration, as well as took ownership of the detailed design in 2 subsystems. As part of our high level goals, I lead an faster prototyping design cycle, enabling us to find issues before the final design.Â
We started by prototyping different design mechanisms, the refined the protoypes to make decisions on material selection, dimensions, and off the shelf part selection. I personally designed of the shooter/shooter system and drivebase system, as shown below. I utilized a CNC router and laser cutter to reduce manufacturing time, thus enabling more testing iterations. The quick iterations lead to the team having substationally more time to test and refine the mechaniacal, electrical, and software systems. Extensive use of CAE softwares AutoDesk Fusion 360 and Fusion 360 CAM enabled this quick design cycle. The robot was also built to be simple, in order to avoid overengineering the problem and improve reliablity of mechanisms. This robot went 31-15-0 in overall play, winning Homestead Robotics's first ever competition in 20 years.
Infinite Recharge Robot
During the 2019 - 2020 season, I lead a small team on designing storage and conveyer system for the year's game peices. The spinning mechanism was prototyped and designed in-house. Various wooden and plastic prototypes were creates to rest optimal ball compression and roller spacing. The final mechanism, was manufacturing out of PETG on a CNC Router, with Autodesk Fusion 360 and Fusion 360 CAM used as the CAE software. The design contributed to the robot going 7-9-0 in competition play, and making it to the regional finals. Additionally, the robot won the Innovation in Control Award. Unfortunately, the rest of the season was cut short by COVID-19.
In 2021, I redesigned the spinning mechanism into a linear ball storage and conveyer system, to improve reliability and reduced jams. This new design was designed to be integrated into the rest of the robot, requiring no changes from other subsytems. The system was prototyped with various pulleys, wheels, and drills before being fabricated out of word on a CNC router. The new and simpler design greatly improved reliability and scoring potential.