User:Rhalboni/ENES-100 Summaries/project 1

Jeyasingh Nithianandam is my instructor.

Project Description
Constructing a Magnetic levitation system, and finding a use for it.

Equipment List

 * 1 Electromagnet
 * At least 1 neodymium magnet
 * 1 Potentiometer
 * Wires
 * 1 Hall effect sensor

Week 1 Narrative
In the first week I found 2 electromagnets in CL-159, and John Stapko let us borrow them. We started to use them, and We researched the Magnetic levitation and researched the different types of designs we could work with for this project. While researching we realized that the basic for all the designs we came across was the the same.So we started researching and learning how the electromagnets worked and how we could use it in our project. At the end we decided to a repulsion magnetic levitation than a mag lev train. We started brainstorming different designs that we could do for this project because we wanted to come up with our own unique design.

Week 2 Narrative
We started to power up the electromagnet, we used AA, and a 6 volt batteries to try and power the magnet, but there was not enough power going through. After after a while we thought to increase the power source up to a 19 V power adapter, and it finally worked.

Week3 Narrative
We gave a presentation to the class about what our project is, and what are goals, and constraints are.

Week4 Narrative
''We designed a structure that will hold electromagnet in place for the magnet to levitate. We also started coding the Arduiuno and make the hall effect sensor to work. The hall effect sensor now read the strength of the magnet and says if its south or north pole. On Thursday we gave another presentation in the class of our preliminary design and got couple of ideas from others in the class."

Week5 Narrative
''We kept working on our projects structure. We wanted to make our structure more stable and make it more appealing too. We also worked on the hall effect sensor. We had the hall effect sensor defect the north and the south pole of a magnet but this week we did more coding and now it can detect the strength of the magnet too. We also started working on putting everything together on a breadboard"

Week6 Narrative
''This week we had to give another presentation. We worked on our presentations and updated it according to our progress."

Week7 Narrative
During this week we started wiring he electromagnet and what we had to do was convert volts to amps. Now since we are still novice engeering students we have no clue how to wire anything so Jey helped us by teaching us what we had to do.

Week8 Narrative
During this week we still are figuring out how to wire and Jey told us to research H- bridges, PnP regulators and other things which we need in order for the Electromagnet to levitate, once we do figure out how to wire everything, then we will have to incorporate the Arduino which powers the hall effect sensor, after we do finish all that we should be very close to being finished.

Week9 Narrative
During this week our group did some improvements to our structure to make it look more presentable. Instead of hanging the electromagnet on by tape we thought of a way to hang it up using a little bit of screws and taped up the hall effect sensor because it has to go under neath the electromagnet and that was the only way it would stay.

Week10 Narrative
This week we have to present in front of all the engineering 101 students, and Jey put me in charge of the teams presentation, and most of the speaking, We did a fairly good job, but unfortunately, the arduino program was not working for some reason, so we will have to see whats wrong with that next week.

Week11 Narrative
During this week my team did not show up to class so except for Densu, so I was by myself, but during this week I looked to see what was wrong with Arduino on my macbook because it would not let me upload anything on to our Arduino uno, what i found out is that the new update of mac is not yet compatibe with arduino, so we will just use some one else's laptop for programming.

Week12 Narrative
This is our last week of class and we have not received the materials we ordered except the new electromagnet. The new electromagnet is much more stronger than the one we had. We had to separate the electromagnets because there were two of them connected together by a rod. We also prepared for giving out final presentation for the seminar.