We were in talks with the LTA engineers to get a pneumatic unit to work with in lab. After a few days of waiting, they informed us that there was a pneumatic unit in the SMRT-NTU Smart Urban Rail Corporate Lab and linked us up with a researcher working in that lab! Finally, we could get our hands on the pneumatic unit and start visualizing and materializing our solution. 🙂
We went over to the SMRT-NTU Corp Lab with a trolley and brought the unit to the Making and Tinkering Lab. However, we soon realized that this pneumatic unit (which was on display in the SMRT-NTU Corp Lab) is not the same as the unit currently used in the trains. The pneumatic unit we got from SMRT-NTU Corp Lab is pictured below on the left and the pneumatic unit used for repair and replacement works in Tuas Depot is pictured on the right.
We won’t be able to get the actual unit anytime soon too.
This meant that we would be working with different dimensions and different attachments on the metal base of the pneumatic unit whilst brainstorming and creating our clamp system. Our crafted clamp system had to be adjustable to allow for these tweaks in dimension and attachments. Also, this probably meant that we will not be able to custom-build a grip that can hold onto any of the attachments.
We had to think of a way to work around this… Thinking caps on!
Also, since we will visit the Tuas Depot again tomorrow, we brainstormed some of the train and depot measurements to take:
- Height between train floor and top of door
- Height between depot floor and train floor
- Distance between pneumatic unit and LED screen cover
- Height between bottom of pneumatic unit and top of LED screen cover (this area will be known as the Working Space)
- Angle of pneumatic unit with respect to normal from ground
- Length by which to slide pneumatic unit sideways
- Distance between two doors in one car
- Distance between the door edge and vertical grab bar (if present)
- Distance between the glass barrier beside the seats on both sides of the door
- Maximum height of the train car
- Length, breadth and height of pneumatic unit