Mech W24 goals

Comp drone

Cabin

• First rev parts made, sitting in the bay.

  • need to do peek machining

  • cargo compartment + seat designs missin

    • door, seats, cargo bay integrated separately.

  • Rev1 just the shell.

  • CF sheets on table in bay

• Second revision to come out at some point.

• CF ordered → to be iterated.

• Weight projections tbd. 2-3 layer thick carbon fiber, quite thin.

  • heaviest part peek + rods.

  • seats + accessories will add weight.

Half-term goals:

Term goals:

• cabin manufactured & existing on the drone.

• second rev. of cabin with cargo + seats + doors + spares.

Flight test requirements:

• flight test cabin & make sure no fundamental flaws

  • Not testing for cabin structural modes. Check for system modes + tuning / balance / flight characteristics.

    • crosswinds ?!

Timeline projections:

• Rev1 ready to flight test end of january (small amounts of lathe work + assembly)

• Rev2 timeline DNE. Ideally end of february / beginning of march would be next iteration.

Airframe Updates

• Drone exists! Identified issues:

  • Landing gear is a bit wobbly, needs improvement.

  • Overall goal to lighten the airframe, started in CAD for pegasus 2.0 (updates later)

  • Continue support for airframe flaws

  • Optical flow vibration characterization, leg in fov

  • Waterproof drone frame

  • Backup center aluminum block. (To be addressed in pegasus 2.0)

    • Ideally will be more optimized, but original pegasus can be drop-in replacement.

Half-term goals:

Term goals:

Flight test requirements:

• Optical flow sensors

Timeline projections:

Pegasus 2.0

• Currently doesn’t exist

• Small updates available in CAD (mostly right after integration of Pegasus 1.0)

• Targetting pegasus 2.0 for comp

• Trying to keep structure the same, other than landing gear.

• Need to manufacture + Assemble

Half-term goals:

Term-goals:

• flying pegasus 2.0

  • pegasus 1.0 remains mechanically viable as a backup option.

Flight test requirements:

• Full qualification / acceptance tests for Pegasus 2.0 flight characteristics.

Timeline:

• Best case ready to integrate late feb / early march.

• latest possible to begin ATP start of apr.

Video System

• No clue what we want on the drone for comp.

• To be discussed in future meetings

Antenna Tracker

• Needs to continue cad

• need to design mounts for yaw servo, rc & video tower components

Timeline:

• timeline TBD, looking assembled late feb to march.

  • will coordinate across different subteams to determine.

mech leads to follow up w/ Arjun about antenna tracker (what he needs)

non comp projects

• trying to get ahod for comp projects

• both of these carryover from past terms

Thrust testing rig

• Almost done, parts machined, were some tolerance issues.

• Re-manufacture alum block & assemble

Houston Upgrades

• only 3 legs touch platform, bend angle incorrect?

  • parts to be re-manufactured, assembled.

  • Quick process

• Waterproofing prototypes to be implemented directly on pegasus (bypass houston).

Thoughts on meetings

AEAC Sync

• ran AEAC sync summer + fall 23. Do we need to continue running and what to get out of them?

  • May be valuable, but everyone needs to be paying attention.

    • Lot’s of repetition in questions (to other subteams) when conversations had occured multiple times already.

    • Subteams weren’t paying attention and had started work in separate (unique) directions which did not align.

  • Good idea to keep people updated.

  • Separate from leads meeting (leads seems more administrative, and this seems more like content for the drone).

• Were AEAC sync meetings too technical in the fall term?

  • Should keep details because otherwise no way for subteams to talk about what they are doing

  • Only meeting that we talk technical things that’s not a subteam meeting.

• Should we make decisions in AEAC sync?

  • might be better to have discussion meetings before AEAC sync and discuss the outcomes in aeac sync.

    • (decision doc meta)

    • Big discussion try and have the only stakeholders present so as not to take time away from people.

• Was going over updates in arch doc helpful?

  • Depends on size of change. (Long discussions curtailed)

• Thoughts on divving aeac into multiple smaller meetings?

  • Not if it takes more time, only good if in same time-slot and socially acceptable to leave in between?

  •  

Leads meeting

• Thoughts on combining leads & aeac sync (into the same meeting?) - leads meetings are about 15 minutes long and it feels like a waste of time to have leads meetings.

  • no - regular members join aeac sync, not leads.

  • no - will be skipping through the admin stuff & also skip through the comp stuff.

  • Thought leads == meeting where it doesn’t make sense to have everyone present; aeac == everyone encouraged to come if you have stake in the project.

  • Goals of aeac diff from leads?

• Shorter meeting (updates) vs Long(er) discussions

  • as long as aeac sync is not brought into leads

  • people problem solving in leads.

Director support