Week 2:

We spent the morning receiving further instructions on the project and talking through examples with the lecturers, what is a good idea and what isn’t etc. Within the group we started to throw ideas around that we thought might be suitable, we had a lot of possibilities though most were not practical. We had a few issues that we discussed with Gerry regarding the feasibility of our ideas and the possibility we were aiming too high for what we could achieve in the time allowed and with the resources available to us. This changed our thought pattern from innovating something new to trying to improve an existing idea and or supplement a current technology with new improvements.

We then spent the day discussing our new train of thought.

Hopefully we will come up with an idea before next week as the contract is due.

Week 3:

This week we have to sign the contract for the project we will be doing for the year. After much consideration and varying ideas from new style 4 point seatbelts and specialised water cooled brakes.

In the end we decided on regenerative electricity, implementing it on to existing suspension systems, trying to convert kinetic energy generated by the motion of suspension travel, into electricity to supplement the alternator. As cars today have ever increasing amounts of electronic systems in them, the alternator comes under a lot more stress. Therefore we feel a supplement to the alternator is advantageous to the overall operating of a vehicle.

Week 4:

We met up at Justin’s house today to setup our schedule of when we are going to meet up and to also discuss and write our plan of action.

We have also been researching eletro-magnets and magnetic fields to further our knowledge on the subject.

At this stage it looks like we will be meeting up twice a week at Justin’s house as it is close for me and Jono so nobody has to drive really far, it seems the most logical setup and we have setup our plan as follows:

Week 4 to week 8 will be spent doing research on electro-magnets and magnetic fields to further our knowledge on the subject, Jonathon has the best knowledge on the subject since he has done Certificate in autotronics.

Week 5:

We have been carrying on our research into the subject and have learnt more about how simple but effective this design is in generating electricity.

We have looked into copper coil wire and found that we will require about 500 to 1000 turns of wire to generate the electricity the need, the thickness of this copper wire will be tested to see which thickness will work the best as we are unsure at this stage.

We are also unsure at the cost of this wire as copper prices are high in comparison to other metals.

Week 6:

This week we were dedicated to learning what magnet would be best suited for our device.

We learnt that in order to generate the electricity by passing through the copper coil you require a very powerful magnet, so conventional magnets will not suffice for this project and we will have to purchase a more expensive and powerful magnet.

We discovered that Neodymium magnets would work the best as they are extremely strong but these are rare and expensive, we have inquired about these and have received good responses.

Week 7: holidays

Week 8: holidays

Week 9:

We have formulated a calculation to derive the peak voltage of our generator it is as follows:

V  = A x M x N

V =  Peak voltage generated

A = Cross sectional area

M = Rate of magnetic field

N = Number of turns

so N =  V/(AxM) = 4/(0.0008x5) = 1000 turns

We have also concluded that thicker wire will produce less power loss but requires more room, this will need to be taken into consideration depending on where we decide to mount the device on a vehicle.

Week 10
 After further research we think we are ready to start the building phase of the prototype. We were a bit unsure on how to acquire the materials we needed, (as big magnets cost a fortune), but we've made do so far. We have found some small neodymium magnets and we think they'll be sufficient to our cause. 

Week 11
 We've been trying to figure out a simple circuit board that will suit our purpose. Firstly it must harness the power generated. Secondly the the power must not fry the board itself and thirdly the AC voltage must be rectified to DC for vehicle use.

Week 12
Now that we have most of our different components, we are trying to combine them into a suitable shape and size.  So far we've decided that the best idea will be to mound it with a U-bracket via a U-bar, though we may have to change this design later.

Week 13
 We've unsuccessfully attempted to mount the components as mentioned in the last post, as the U-bracket is not strong enough to hold the prototype in place when the suspension is fully in motion, its causing the prototype to swivel.
We've realised that we will require another U-bracket at the bottom of the prototype to hold it on the suspension firmly and stop the swivel. Justin suggested a bush of some kind so that we have a better surface to mount it on. 

Week 14
 Again this week we're trying to mount this pain in the ass prototype. It's quite small and fairly delicate, also it needs to be sitting right to work, so we must get this mounting right. 
Even with two U-brackets holding the prototype in place it is still managing to swivel around. With more resources, we'd be able to make a permanent type mount that would be concaved and "wrap" round the suspension to maximise its stability. As this is really just a cheap prototype I think we'll just have to keep it as is, and rely on some trusty tape to support it.

Week 15
 The group met up today to really just talk about how well we're keeping to our plan. The Gantt chart we'd created earlier in the year has been a bit off, so we're thinking of updating it and reassessing our sitiuation as we've had some experience now. Certain things such as; Gathering Materials, has taken longer than expected so we're behind our schedule at the moment.

Week 16
We've started some basic testing with a multimeter and an L.E.D which we put into the circuit. Using these two tools we have been able to confirm that the circuit is working and the batteries are being charged by the shaking. We'll have to come up with some ideas for testing this practically later.
Week 17
 One week out before the end of semester one and to get things on the move I've taken the lead on making the presentation, as we tend to lose focus quite easily lol. So far our presentation will contain mostly our ideas and theory as our prototype is still in its development stage and is not yet ready to be shown. 
The guidelines for the presentation is pretty vague but we'll throw something together and see how wel we do. We know our stuff but its sometimes hard to get that across to the lecturers.

Week 18


Today we have to do our presentation at unitec, I think we were a little bit nervous because the outlines on what the presentation should be like is a bit rough but I think we are on the right track.

The presentation went well we are all quite pleased with how it went, we are confident in our project and that it will give us the results we want when we are at the testing stage, but at this point it is only a theory so we have our fingers crossed.
 
Semester 2
Week 1
 This week we're looking into how we will test this prototype. When the prototype is working fully we will at first testis with the use of an oscilliscope to record a voltage waveform whilst we are shaking the prototype. This will give us a very accurate reading on how well it is performing at its maximum(as the shaking will probably be more violent of motion than car on the road). 
We want to do the same test on the road, but we've no clue as to how we could mount the prototype with the oscilliscope attached and see the oscilliscopes waveform whilst we are driving.
Week 2
As we were about to test the prototype on the car, we managed to break it whilst trying to mount it, typical. This has cause a bit of a delay as we'll have to find a new tube to hold the magnets and also wrap the tube with the coil. It's a thicker copper wire which we're hoping will help to gernerate more current.

Week 3
This week has been spent trying to find new materials that will fit whats left of our broken prototype so that we can rebuild it. We made a group visit to Jaycar in search of parts of which we bought plastic tubing suitable to ouru purpose as it'll fit the magnets almost perfectly. We've though of putting both our magnets in with both the north poles facing towards each other so that they will repel each other, adding to the motion of the magnet passing through the coil.

Week 4
 Rebuilding our prototype this week, we've managed to secure the circuit board better this time, through the use of ALOT of tape. Also the generator part is working a lot better and more efficiently than before. As we've been delayed we feel a bit under pressure to get this working quickly so more testing can be done.

Week 5
 The prototype is now working again, although it took longer than we'd wanted to, at least its working. Fixing it didn't prove easy, as we had to make another sort of brace, to hold the tube on the runners and then use a drill to turn it. 
It's not the flashiest finish but with our budget and makeshift engineering its still working and we can now test it properly. We are confident it won't break again.

Week 6
 I was away sick this week, but Kevin and Justin re-tested the fixed prototype with via a multimeter and the L.E.D. Apparently it's working, and so next week, I'll test it in Steves class with an Oscilliscope.

Week 7
 This week we officially test the prototype on the oscilliscope, I'll be leading the testing with the oscilliscope as I've had the most experience with them. We found that the prototype produced an AC waveform of which we recorded and will be in the report. It worked surprisingly well, and if we were able to build a life size prototype we would really see some amazing results as we know it'll definitly work. We also doubled checked the batteries being charged after the regulator.

Week 8
 Today we've met up to produce a fully working prototype on car. We have a general idea how to mount this but in reality we just might have to improvise. At first we thought we could mount is within the wheel well, so as to get as much shock as possible through the prototype. Seeing this in reality showed up that this would not be possible so we decided that we'd have to mount it parallel to the shock absorber. Justins mechanical experience showed as we led us to mounting the prototype securely. He then went one step further and mounted his Iphone under the car pointing towards the prototype so that we could make a video of the prototype whilst driving. It was genius! And worked perfectly.

Week 9 
With all the results we need its time to finalise the gigantic report. I've never seen so many energy drinks consumed in one day  but it definitly helped us rip through whats left of the report. I can forsee a long day ahead of us as we're really discussing each little bit and wasting time but we should produce a good report to justify our working prototype. 

Thanks for reading.
Jonathan Coluccio 
Student I.D. 136 1006