This is the official blog for the Michigan Technological University (MTU) Solar Car Team. We hope you find this blog informative and please check out our official website at http://www.enterprise.mtu.edu/afg/solar.htm
As we pass the midpoint of the semester we are starting to see much more implementation in our car. Despite our space limitations we're mocking up and working on adding steering to our chassis. The shell team has the model shell almost completed and our electrical team is working with Suniva to get 200 cells for our vehicle. With that being said we would like to give special mention to our mechanical lead Dan Sallen. Dan, featured below in the fully built chassis, will be leaving MTU after this semester and will be going in to the work force as an ME. Dan has been the driving force in our mechanical group and will be missed greatly!
Below is our shell team getting underway with the final plug, and grabbing the carbon fiber needed to make the final shell. The shell team has also put together a new layout plan for the solar cells which should maximize our potential power.
Finally the electrical team is working with Suniva solar to get 200 cells for the solar car, we would like to thank Suniva for their time. We haven't reached a full agreement with Suniva but are hoping to get something finalized soon. I would also like to take a moment to mention Joe Rushing, another member that will be leaving this semester. Joe has been crucial to the electrical design and has proven to be a valuable component in our power analysis.
As part of our new strategy this semester we've been hitting the project hard in hopes to grab as much progress as we possibly can. First off is our shell team which has put together a solid technique for shaping and working with our foam plug model. This technique is finally in the implementation stage of the project and has allowed the team to smooth out any rough edges in the process.
Finally the shell team has provided final numbers on solar cell counts and possible final curvatures. This leads us into the electrical team. The electrical teams approach this semester is to set up a complete system for testing and implementation strategy. So far they have grabbed enough equipment to set up their test rig but are missing solar cells. They have already contacted over a dozen different companies in hopes of getting at least 250 new cells for the car and test rigs. The set up of the testing rigs will also help the team to find a way to encapsulate the solar cells. Only a handful of teams in the US encapsulate their own cells. This sets our team apart and just adds to the overall experience and expertise that we are acquiring over the course of this project. In addition the electrical team now has the prototype motor hooked up to Dspace. This is a special digital environment that will allows us to acquire and model precise data from the motor's output. The last group in our team is the chassis team and they have done some major work in the last few weeks. We now have our full chassis components and are working on how the steering and braking is going to lay out.
Welcome to another year at Michigan Tech from the Solar Car Team. We are a few weeks into the school year and so much has already been set into motion. Firstly the team would like to welcome back most of our previous team members and introduce our five new team members Rob Ferris, Michael Pawlicki, Orlando Reyes, Stephen DeCeuninck and Jacob Menchak. I will post a link to updated bios and team pictures within the next couple of weeks once the team obtains polo’s for the new members.
The team is proud to have a new sponsor in Dow Corning. Over the course of the summer the team was in contact with Dow Corning about a possible materials or cash donation. In the end their generous cash donation is going to allow the team to confidently proceed in building our solar car this year. Thank you Dow Corning.
The plan for this semester is to build our chassis and shell. The tubing for our chassis is being donated by Arcelor Mittal and should arrive by the first week in October. At that time we will begin bending and welding our chassis together. Hopefully during that time our carbon fiber and resin will arrive and our shell team can begin experimenting and gaining experience working with those materials. That experience will come by designing and fabricating a new carbon fiber shell for our demonstration car. Shortly thereafter the team will begin to layup our shell and all the intricacies involved in that. During this time our newly expanded electrical team will be planning our array and controls with the ultimate goal of having a list of products and prices so that when the team receives the funding we are ready to make those purchases.
As always, the team is pursuing additional sponsorship opportunities and if they work out additional details will be posted here and on our website.
Hello again. It has been quite a while since I have updated our blog here. Well I am back with a summer update!
The team successfully navigated our way through April and all of our individual finals without too much difficulty. The name of the game for April was tying up loose ends and compiling our end of year report. Our loose ends included a few final touches to our models to bring them to a good place before the summer, reconnecting with our alumni donors to thank them properly for their support, and most exciting of all, finalizing a large product donation from 3M. This donation was part of a larger donation to the entire Enterprise program and the Solar Car Team is very grateful to have been included in that offering and we will make the most of the supplies donated.
Our report describes everything the team has accomplished in the year in detail. This report ended up being the largest yet produced by the Solar Car Team at nearly 70 pages. The report included sections on all mechanical, electrical, material, and business aspects of our project, but also included sections on team outreach to the larger Enterprise and Enterprise programs and a preview of next year’s senior design projects. After much editing, pruning, and shaping for style and voice, using all those muscles engineers hate to flex, the report was presented to our advisor. Dr. Keith examined the report and gave the team constructive criticism which will help our future efforts.
Our proposed, and accepted, projects for senior design are going to be either one of two options. The first option being designing and fabricating the steering system for our solar car. This design will include detailed kinematic and dynamic models of the steering and linkage system in both Unigraphics and MatLab with the ultimate goal of constructing and validating our models. The second option is to run detailed flow simulations to maximize the efficiency of our shell. This project will involve learning how to properly utilize flow analysis software which nobody on our team is very experienced with, fabricating scale models of our shell designs, and devising a small scale, cheap experimental method to collect data on our shells.
Our plans for the summer are going to be fairly low key. We will continue to explore sponsorship opportunities with companies who are excited about alternative energy and the roles that future engineers will play in making those alternatives possible. Our leadership will also look to reflect on how the team can continue to grow positively by assessing our successes and failures of the previous year. Hopefully, this searching will lead to better practices and continued leadership next year.
