Summer Update

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.


If I don’t see you have a great summer.


Until next time,
~Dan Sallen