It’s hard to believe that we are already a month and a half into the school year. Even though there are still many months until the solar car challenge, the team knows that that time will fly by and everyone is eager to get working. We have had a lot of recent progress split up into three main categories: onboarding, outreach, and design
Our onboarding process has been in full swing for a few weeks now, and new members are just about ready to begin work on their own projects. Once they understood the nature of the solar car challenge, they used videos prepared by our more experienced members to gain knowledge in our main sub-teams. They also began shadowing some of our more experienced members to learn more about the design process. Their next steps will start with a fundraising campaign, and eventually they will progress on their own new project. This is exciting as the team will now have many more people who are enthusiastic and have the skills needed to begin working on our car.
October Team Fundraising Meeting
New members are not the only ones working on fundraising, however. Our entire team has been writing letters of their own. Some of our team members also presented to the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association (SEVA). We presented to electric vehicle owners with valuable experience working on their own cars. Some of them have even converted traditional cars into electric cars which gives them experience in similar areas to the ones we are currently working on. This event allowed us to develop valuable connections with professionals in the electric vehicle industry.
Vortices from the trailing edge of a previous iteration of a bullet design
The design process is in full swing; a major portion of it has been working on aerodynamics. For this year’s car, we are attempting to cut back on the solar panel area. This means we will be able to build a smaller car that is even lighter and faster than before. Over the past few weeks, we have been running countless models to perfect our shape and design. We are starting to see some real improvement in recent iterations with less vortices and drag.
Streamlining in recent aerodynamic models
We are all so excited to finally get this new car underway. Please stick around for our blog updates as we finalize the design process and begin manufacturing.