Week 2

The second week of Spartan Superway progressed at an incredible rate. Unlike last week where I learned and worked by myself; I have a team this week. There are two new members that joined the wayside. I caught the team up on the progress I made on the first week, and what my plans were on the wayside. The team agreed with me to progress as planned on my week 1 blog. I decide and test the batteries and railing on the half scale track. Testing the solar panels under the sun gave a high voltage. I put two solar panels in series, which gave us a total of 57.34 volts as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Multimeter reading solar panel voltage

Charging the battery was difficult. There is a problem with either the solar panel charge controller or the batteries. Each batteries gave off a different voltage and each outputs and inputs. Our new goal is to fix and get the half scale model running. The FoodTrans representative will present us a different idea of the track later, and it will be implemented into the full scale. Without information on the FoodTran track, I will be working on the half scale to make sure it is running.