Noelle Takahashi is from Wailuku, Maui, and graduated from Baldwin High School in 2010. She is attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, majoring in Computer Engineering. After graduating, she plans on attending graduate school. In her free time, she enjoys hanging out with friends, hiking, and reading.
Home Island: Maui
High School: Baldwin High School
Institute when accepted: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Building a Control System to Test a Magnetic-Gear Winch
Project Site: Trex Enterprises
Mentor: Ned Davis & Michael Engelmann
Magnetic gears are frictionless, have a long life span, and have many other benefits over traditional gears. Trex Enterprises has created a “sandwich gear” that will be compatible with Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) helicopters. To test the new magnetic gear, a cart was built to carry various loads at different speeds. We created a control system for the cart which dynamically adjusts the brakes at all four wheels, allowing the cart to be pulled under a specified load. A load cell, Hall-effect sensors, and LabJack device are used to acquire data about the instantaneous load and speed of the cart. A circuit was created to automatically control the brakes given a specified set point load for the cart. Java was used to program the LabJack device and to create a graph using the data from the speed and load. In the future, Trex Enterprises would like to fully characterize the speed vs. load performance of its magnetic-gear-based winch designs up to the maximum load capacity of the device under test.