{"id":37767,"date":"2018-06-08T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/?p=37767"},"modified":"2021-07-16T16:24:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-16T20:24:23","slug":"keep-on-monster-truckin-speeding-towards-the-finish-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2018\/06\/keep-on-monster-truckin-speeding-towards-the-finish-line.html","title":{"rendered":"Keep On (Monster) Truckin\u2019: Speeding Towards the Finish Line"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Rob, Albert, and Sal in the mini-Max-D<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The wheels have been painted, the body has been hard coated and sanded umpteenth times, the decals have been laid out, the LEDs have been tested, the chassis has been fitted, and the last week of work arrived. Yes, the SOLIDWORKS build team is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel their monster truck costume has been racing through these past frantic weeks, and the closer they get to their end goal, the more excited and nervous they are.<\/p>\n

Any free time the build team has is spent in the Dassault Syst\u00e8mes airplane hangar. There, they have done an unimaginable amount of hard coating, gluing, testing, and sanding (\u201cMy phone doesn\u2019t recognize my fingerprints anymore,\u201d said team member Jeff Turgeon. \u201cI must have sanded them off.\u201d). Hard coating, as a process, is easy to do on paper\u2014it\u2019s just a list of steps to follow to apply the coat evenly. But in reality, it\u2019s a much more difficult process. Annie has mastered the art of hard coating, but it\u2019s still a process that involves precision in thickness, and then once the coat is applied you have to know how to sand so you don\u2019t ruin details.<\/p>\n

\"Chinloo<\/a>
Chinloo with her toothbrush-sander<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking of details, the face of the mini-Max-D is one of, if not the, most detailed pieces on the costume. The original idea was to sand it with a Dremel, but none of the Dremel\u2019s in the lab were right for the intricate sanding that needed to be done. So Chinloo brought in her electric toothbrush! A piece of sandpaper was attached to the toothbrush head, and the mini-Max-D faces were brushed\/sanded to perfection with a simple hack.<\/p>\n

The team has actually used a lot of hacks in their build. When the for the chassis switched from 3 wheels to 4 wheels, the way the weight of the attached pieces fell on the PVC pipes had to be taken into account. The way you design something in a 3D simulation doesn\u2019t necessary reflect how it will come out in real life, where gravity exists, and the team could only add so many T-pipes and crossbars for stability. Soon, there was no room left on the chassis for more crossbars and T\u2019s to be added. So Annie, Rob, and Sal decided to repurpose another piece that was being added to the chassis: the aluminum U-channels. The U-channels were being used to hold up the acrylic pieces that would be attached to the costume, and now they have another purpose. U-channels will be used as a cross brace to stabilize two of chassis sides as more costume parts are added on.<\/p>\n

\"Jonah<\/a>
Jonah in the chassis<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stability is good for a lot of reasons, and that stability was tested when Jonah had his costume\u2019s dry fit! On the last Wednesday in May, Chinloo, Sal, Albert, and Rob traveled down to Jonah\u2019s home to test the costume in person. While his younger siblings played in the yard, Jonah finally got to put part of his costume on.\u00a0 His wheelchair has eyehooks, normally used for stability in a moving vehicle, and the team was able to attach the chassis to the wheelchair. It worked beautifully! Jonah was able to reach his chair\u2019s max speed of six miles per hour and brake with the chassis attached, no problem. Jonah was over the moon; he was even able to take his chassis off-roading into his grassy backyard, rolling over rough terrain like a real monster truck. There was no lag, no rattling, no wobbling, the chassis stayed together perfectly\u2014everything the team wanted. \u201cI was like, \u201cWhew, thank God!\u201d laughed Rob.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The team working on Jonah\u2019s costume with him inside<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The only hiccup during the dry fit was the right bar of the chassis hitting Jonah\u2019s hand as he turned. There was some scrambling among the team members present about how to fix the issue\u2014should they add a piece of foam to cushion his arm? Should they take Jonah off center so his arm isn\u2019t so close to the pipe? Then Sal had a simple, perfect idea. He asked Jonah is his seat could move up and down. Jonah moved his seat up by half an inch and the bar was cleared. With new measurements of Jonah\u2019s eyesight and height, the team will have rethink their plans for attaching the truck body to the chassis. Fortunately, it\u2019s not a huge concern; they have options. When building the casters, they created \u00bd inch shims, and they can add two shims underneath each caster on the chassis to give it extra height. They also have some wiggle room with the size of the truck body itself. The truck body already sits a little high and the original plan was to drill holes into it so it would sit lower on the chassis. With the change in Jonah\u2019s seat height, they may not have to drill the holes and can just glue the body to the chassis\u2019 PVC caps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A rare group photo (this isn\u2019t even everybody on the team!)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s still so much to do. Detail painting on the wheels, painting the body, fitting the body on the frame, all the electronics, LEDs, and wiring, and still more sanding and hard coats. But even with all the work before them, the team is feeling good. Nervous, but still optimistic about finishing on time and giving Jonah the most incredible monster truck costume any kid has ever seen.<\/p>\n

The day this blog posts will be one day before Monster Jam, where the SOLIDWORKS build team is going to reveal Jonah\u2019s completed costume to him for the first time. He doesn\u2019t know that his costume will be complete by then\u2014Jonah still thinks he\u2019s getting this costume for Halloween. He thinks this is just a normal, fun family time at Monster Jam (hopefully he hasn\u2019t been reading this series!). At the time of writing, there is little more than a week left to build the mini-Max-D, and the team is chomping at the bit to finish up their epic creation. Will they make it in time? Will Jonah have the experience of a life time? We\u2019ll find out tomorrow and we\u2019ll all keep on (monster) truckin\u2019!<\/p>\n

\"Keep<\/a><\/p>\n

Help support Magic Wheelchair and amazing kiddos like Jonah!<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOLIDWORKS is working hard to make Jonah\u2019s dreams come true, and helping the non-profit Magic Wheelchair achieve its goal of providing kids in wheelchairs with epic costumes. SOLIDWORKS is funding Jonah\u2019s costume build in its entirety, but we invite all our readers to support Magic Wheelchair in Jonah\u2019s name! If you visit this\u00a0classy.org page<\/strong><\/a>, you can donate directly to Magic Wheelchair and help support them and all the lives they touch with their great work. Stayed tuned for more updates on this exciting build and always remember to keep on (monster) truckin\u2019!<\/p>\n

SOLIDWORKS is partnering with the Magic Wheelchair\u00a0to create an over-the-top costume for a child in a wheelchair. According to their mission statement, \u201cMagic Wheelchair builds epic costumes for kiddos in wheelchairs \u2014\u00a0 at no cost to families.\u201d\u00a0Keep On (Monster) Truckin\u2019\u00a0is an ongoing series dedicated to updating our readers on the current project\u2019s progress.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read about Jonah\u2019s costume from the beginning<\/a><\/strong>!<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you to all who support our team, including\u00a0Magic Wheelchair<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Monster Jam<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Permobil<\/strong><\/a>, and\u00a0MLC CAD<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keep On (Monster) Truckin\u2019 is an ongoing series dedicated to updating our readers on the progress of the SOLIDWORKS R&D’s Magic Wheelchair project.<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":409,"featured_media":37765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402,3,17],"tags":[2773,2069,452,3557,2768,19,2793,2794],"class_list":["post-37767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3d-printing","category-community","category-education","tag-3dexperience-lab","tag-community","tag-education-2","tag-jonah","tag-magic-wheelchair","tag-solidworks-2","tag-solidworks-for-good","tag-user-advocacy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/409"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37767"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47163,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37767\/revisions\/47163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}