Risks
Speed-Up Coil:
When it comes to the speed-up coil, the potential risks that are in play are the strength of the magnetic field being produced by the coil, as well as how far the coil propels the carrier along the track. For the strength of the magnetic field, if what is being produced is not strong enough, then that means that we would probably need to alter our design of the project the remove the speed-up coil since that would mean we need to allocate more time and money towards creating morrer coils, and with such little time remaining of the project, is something we would need to consider in terms of potentially removing such coils. As for how far the coil propels the carrier along the track, if the distance is not great enough, that means that we would need to allocate more money towards buying more resources to produce more coils for the track.
Bluetooth Communication:
We currently have implemented a circuit that sends signals between a receiver and a sender. The sender takes readings from the hall effect sensors and outputs a string to the receiver to determine which LEDs to light up. The main risk with Bluetooth communication making sure we can send the signals from the carrier to the track in a timely fashion. There’s a slight delay between sending a signal and the receiver registering it. We need to make sure that the signals are transmitted fast enough to make sure that our carrier does not experience a significant slowdown on the track. We want our carrier to exhibit constant speed throughout the demo at least. To mitigate this we will need to be very precise with how and when decide the hall effect sensors are high enough to transmit. Trial and error are likely needed.
Small Gap Between Track and Carrier:
Our new carrier design has less space between magnets but still has a small gap between the track and the carrier. This gap is limiting space for the speed up coils and limits levitation. If this is not fixed, the speed up coils will not be able to adequately propel the carrier and the lack of room for levitation can cause the rails on the track and the hook on the carrier to have a lot of friction, causing damaging to both. We plan to cut the hooks from the carrier.
Design Changes
Track now has rectangle magnets spaced out 1cm. The carrier use circle magnets that have no spacing betweening each other.
Schedule:
We are currently on schedule.