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