Project Overview

The overall goal of this project is to design and construct a pedal box for Drexel Formula SAE DR19. An example image of this can be seen below:

(These photographs were taken from previous year's design)

Drexel Formula SAE is a club in which students work together to create a model race cart. This race cart will then be used to compete against other Universities throughout the United States, and possibly internationally. One very important part of the cart design is the pedal box, as this contains the throttle and break pedals. These two pedals work together to control the acceleration and speed of the cart.

In addition to following the project design rules of Engr 103, this group must also follow the design rules of Formula SAE, as there are certain restrictions that affect the design of the pedal box.

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Week 6

Last week (Week 5), the group focused on preparing for the manufacturing of the pedal box. In order to do this, the design was made lighter and the group used the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) tool on Solidworks to see how well the material would hold up under force. This week (Week 6), the group finalized the preparations for manufacturing and sent parts to be created. In order to prepare for manufacturing, the group finalized the computer aided design of the pedal box, which can be seen below. In order to finalize this design, David added the real model of the balance bar to the assembly and added ball bearings to the pedals. These make the overall design more realistic when it comes to how the pedal box is actually going to function. Balance Bar (Left) || Ball Bearing (Bottom Right) Additionally, one problem that the group ran into was the forces on the brake pedal. It was determined that the screws holding the balance bar and master cylinder systems were under too much

Week 5

Last week (Week 4), the group dove into the modelling of the pedal box, in addition to working on the Finite Element Analysis (FEA) which resulted from the design. Specifically, the FEA of the brake pedal was tested to see the strength of the material, and the pedal box slide was incorporated into the overall design. For this week (Week 5), more analysis was done on the pedal box as the group gets ready for its manufacturing. The final design of the pedal box is as such: To start off, the group focused on making the pedal box as light as possible. In order to achieve this goal this week, much of the group's attention was directed towards the throttle pedal. Last week (Week 4), David and Lauren both worked to find the appropriate thickness of the throttle pedal. While this is great for the overall design, it then makes the system marginally heavier. In order to counteract this, David put holes in the design and thinned the width of the throttle. This makes the overall system

Week 9

Last week (Week 8), the group focused on the machining of the throttle pedal, in addition to ordering the material for the adjustable slides. This week (week 9), the group manufactured the adjustable slides for the machine shop. Before thye physically manufactured the product, the overall design was updated by a senior member of Formula SAE. This design can be seen below. A small edge of metal was added to the side of the adjustable slide in order to absorb more force from the pedal box. Additionally, more metal was added beneath the bolts connecting to the chassis in order to add more support to the overall system. A photo of the product (halfway through manufacturing), as well as a video of the manufacturing, can be seen below: Lauren made spacers for the gap between the pedals and pressed the bearings for the brake pedals. In order to do this, she first had to bore the hole for the brake pedal bearing. A video of machining this week can be seen below:

Group 3: FSAE Pedal Box DR19

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