It can hardly be argued that some of the most important parts of a car are the wheels, it wouldn’t be much of a car without them. However, in order to comply with the rules of the Solar Car Competition (and protect the rear of the poor soul who has to drive the car), we […]
An integral part of dealing with lithium ion batteries is having a battery management system (BMS). The purpose of this is to balance the cells (or sets of cells) in series to ensure while charging/de-charging the load is consistent across the whole battery. We are using a BMS which includes an android app to monitor […]
The aerodynamics of our solar car are full steam ahead. A smooth body will ensure that the power from our motors is spent moving the car instead of opposing the drag. Essential elements of our aerodynamic body: Fairings around wheels Smooth airfoil shaped body surrounding chassis Aerodynamic solar panel frame and struts We connected with […]
While having a working and efficient car is important, it’s all for naught if our car doesn’t comply with the Solar Car Challenge’s safety standards. It’s imperative that our car is safe for the driver and those around the car and so, acquiring our required 5-point harness and a good seat for our driver was […]
One of the most fundamental decisions guiding the construction of the car is the choice of materials. The strength and weight of materials used decides the size and type of stock used to create components, as well as dictates in part what manufacturing techniques we can use. This dependency also works in inverse, for example […]
For the braking system, we are using brake discs and calipers from bike brakes, including cable activation via lever. When thinking of brake design and the uniquely shaped chassis, we decided we should use the simplest braking method for a prototype. The Solar Car Challenge requires a dual braking system, with separate pedals activating each […]
Just recently, we have shifted our Three-Dimensional Modeling software from Autodesk Inventor to Dassault Systems’ SOLIDWORKS. Between the program’s there have been many advantages in using SOLIDWORKS over Inventor, namely the real world application and use of the program allows us to make more critical design decisions without having to build anything. The featured image […]
UNDERSTANDING AND PROTOTYPING For our initial steering design, we decided to use a rack and pinion connected to a U-joint, which would connect to the steering wheel. To come up with the design, students visited a golf-cart services shop where they looked at the steering components on golf carts to get a better understanding of […]
We have been assembling photovoltaic cells into arrays and laminating them with a variety of techniques in order to understand the impact on cell efficiency. We are experimenting with 156 mm x 156 mm Sunpower cells and are covering them with heat activated lamination plastic. Recently, we found that the best way to ensure good […]
One of the first design priorities was creating a fundamental chassis as a foundation for the rest of our car. This decision would guide the rest of the design process. Therefore, we began with the basics. We started by reviewing past designs to generate several ideas for the basic car geometry. From this preliminary brainstorming, we reached […]
