Reflection #1

 This first week was extremely hectic for me I never thought I would actually come this far within this project. this project started at the beginning of the year trying to challenge myself to build something that I didn't think was accomplishable for my level of fabrication and metal engineering. When Gordon said yes to this idea after I had mocked up the frame with wood I was extremely surprised. I'd had the idea for a while but just really did not know how to execute end Gordon saying yes gave me the freedom to start my journey in creating a new passion that I had never explored before. Switching my senior project to my electric motorcycle build was one of the best things I think I've ever done. In the past week, I've been able to accomplish all the extremely complicated parts of the build. Building the frame was a piece of cake and although it took me a long time it was nothing difficult, but making the bike run and creating the internals and drivetrain is one of the most complicated things I've ever done. This is purely because there are so many elements that you have to think about in your head that have to work perfectly together with each other to make the bike move forward.

the first part of the week started slaw I started off by securing out how the drivetrain would go together. Although this seems like a very simple and easy task it is very difficult because there are so many elements that go into it. I recently started off with an extremely simple design of just mounting the motor and running a chain from the motor to the rear hub which would have left me with almost nothing to do other than create the aesthetic things such as plastics for the side of the bike and the seat. but then Gordon brought up the point that the bike might not have enough torque with the current ratio of gears. we decided that a jackshaft would create a good ratio and make the bike more capable over a longer. Of time instead of the bike topping out around 70 mph and having a substantial amount of torque. The hardest part of the build was figuring out how I was going to orient everything and find enough space to fit it all in the bike. I struggled with the layout for about a day or two and then started creating I created The Idler pulley that would go right behind the right foot Peg to run the chain under the swing arm mountThis was the only way to run the chain because there's not a lot of space inside the bike and I did not really think about how he's going to set up the drivetrain before building. All the stuff that I'm doing right now is much harder just because of my lack of planning in the first place what is good to learn the hard way because it makes you use your brain just a little bit more. 

I struggled with a lot of things throughout the creation of my bike, but the thing I struggled with the most throughout this process was coming up with different ways to work around the blocks in the road. these blocks could have been simple things like how I was going to get in a good position to weld something, or it could have been something more serious like how is going to gear the bike down any sufficient way to make it fast but also have enough torque to ride well in all terrain. In hindsight there's a bunch of stuff that I could have done differently to improve the geometry of the frame. One thing I really regret is not thinking about the geometry of the set, I think instead of making it unreasonably tall I could have lower the Highlight a little bit and figured out how much clearance I would need so that the back wheel would not rub on the fender end rear of the frame. I also think I could have created more space in the frame so that the bike was balanced better. One thing I'm worried about right now is that most of the way is towards the front of the main triangle of the frame meaning that the bike is slightly front heavy, not making it good for jumping or riding in rough terrain. Although I feel like there's a lot of stuff I could have done differently to make the bike feel better when riding this is an ongoing project that I will try to keep up over the next few years in perfect the bike but overall this week I have accomplished a great deal I never thought I would be able to get this far on the project and I am extremely proud of myself for pushing through and making it all work.