This week I focused mainly on gathering information about how our group should proceed for the spring semester.
I had written down many questions to ask Andries about his x-beam design before meeting meeting, and he did answer most of them and pointed out several features not explicitly shown in the blueprints.
Afterwards I discussed with my group-mates and with Mr. Swenson and Dr. Furman about what we should do for the deliverable. Although my group and I were originally expecting to do a medium T-shaped prototype, we later learned that a clients wants to build a round and curved Y-shaped version. In addition Andries said that we should actually do a smaller model to showcase the final look (similar to an architect's model) with working cars and a full scale column "stub" to show the technology behind it. This changes the plan dramatically, but likely will make things a lot simpler for our group.
At home, I began experimenting with a few of the possible configurations of how to make the Y shape configuration while still using the x-beams for the top portion. Unfortunately, the very linear nature of the beams makes this trickier than expected, as even with a masking cover there isn't much room for the upper gap, unless we use two branching bars which could be vulnerable to break at the joint.
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