Car Starting to Come Together.

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.

Team rolls in heavy this semester

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.

~Orlando Reyes
Electrical Team Leader