Meeting Notes 10/15/2010

Hey everyone, Just an update, we have requested Feb 26 or 27th (Saturday or Sunday) for our makeup day for today.

Everyone wishing to participate must get training, i sent everyone the list last week, please mark your calendars to see if you can go to one of them.  I’m still trying to get someone to come to the school like last year.  I know that would be easier for most everyone. I’ll keep everyone updated if i hear anything about that.

We filled out the paperwork for Buffalo wild wings fundraising, lets hope that works out well, we’ll ask for volunteers when more info comes available.  I would ultimately like everyone make some effort to stand somewhere on campus and hand them out. It would be good to try to coordinate times and where.  But we can talk about that when the times comes.

We are going to build a spot welder here in the next few weeks to gear up for the new battery pack.  I came up with a great idea (i hope) that will make the construction of the battery pack relevantly simple, cheap and easy to swap batteries (all 3 of the criteria for our team ) More on that as design is finalized.

Mechanical team talked in depth about the design of the chassis specifically starting with the wheels.  There has been some debate and ideas on what to do about the rims.  For now we will assume we will use the same rims as we do now (probably steal the spares to make sure everything works if we havn’t gotten them in.  I also found a really expensive alternative (1500 a rim) http://www.ghcraft.com/shops/cfw/cfw_e.htm these are the rims standford are using.  So if anyone finds a good cheap rim we could use for the car (14-16″ light weight rims).  Maybe we can just design our own =).  (only 1/2 kidding).

The tests were done on the old car to get our baseline complete.  She’s a tough little car.  I’ll let Mike post the results from that as well as his comments on each test and how its gonna effect the design.

Amy will have pictures and videos up when she gets time.

9/17/2010 Meeting Notes

Very productive meeting last Friday.  Went over the projects that needed to get started ASAP.

Projects are:

FUNdraising:

• JESC
  • Update Powerpoint
  • Update Written proposal
  • Update Budgets.  Need a separate Tool Budget
  • Tool budget is communal for all school teams
  • WE want a new TIG welder with that budget
• IEEE
  • Oct 1st meeting
  • Make short presentation
  • Written proposal mostly done
• Parade
  • Research all available parades that we could walk in
  • Find Companies to offer our advertising services to
  • Make Offers to wear shirts, wear signs, and paint side of car

Electrical:

Mechanical:

Welcome Back!

First Meeting of the Semester!

The meeting will be in room 1027 in the Engineering Building at 1:00 pm this Friday, Sept 10th .   Old, new, and prospective  members are all welcome to attend.

Meeting Notes 8-6-10

>On Friday evening we had a good turn-out of members, Thanks guys!  We discussed the logistics of shipping the solar car and ourselves to Australia.  Were hoping to get the support of airline companies or the air-force in the form of free or reduced-price tickets.  Either way we will still need a LOT of money!  For the actual race we will need a BARE minimum of 6 people to effectively race (more would be much better!)
>We talked about changing the car design a little.  If we made the body around the vehicle cockpit extend farther back onto the car and eliminate the seam between the panels and the cockpit, we will reduce our aerodynamic drag (note that the car we are basing our design off of does this)   Other minor body shape changes were discussed to improve aerodynamics.  If we dont go too wild with this, we could greatly improve the performance of our car while only making it slightly harder to manufacture.
>We are SOOO close to finishing the old car.  The list of issues we came up with is as follows:

*Add 3 members to cockpit frame to meet regulations, AND finish welding the roll-cage to the body.
*Repair and attach windshield
*Water Proof the Car- (almost done with this!)
*Meet Fastener spec. criteria (Almost done with this!)
*Vehicle HORN – It is already assembled, but the car bumper will need to be altered to install it
*Vehicle impact analysis-this is quite a project, if you are interested in being TAUGHT how to use 3D modeling and impact analysis programs (so you can help him), contact Mike (migraha@siue.edu)
*Sell advertising space on side of car
*Build the battery holders for batteries (they are already designed and a prototype is underway)

Also, we have a cool new stand-alone team poster that you will be able to see in the EB Atrium by the time school starts!

6/21/2010 Meeting Notes

To-Do Poster, Notes 6/17/09

Dear Team,
For the rest of this week AND next week, I will be busy with school and will not be at the heating plant on Thursdays for meetings. (feel free to meet on Thursdays, or any other time you wish!).
I have finished a To-Do poster, and will be putting it in the heating plant. It is filled with sections of the new Regulations that need to be checked. There is also a copy of the new regulations, I think I left them on the desk. If you need something to do, please work on it! Still confused? Here’s some examples:
Example #1: Section 6.4.D states regulations concerning Safety Belts. Please read the section, and then look at our safety belts to see if they adhere to the standards listed. If so, please write “done” on the TO-DO poster. If not, please pencil in “working on it” and put your name.
Example #2: Section 6.4.A and Appendix C cover the Seating Angle. After reading Appendix C, please make a cardboard cutout of the measuring device shown in Appendix C and check the seating angle. Is our seat too reclined? Is it too upright? Please take the angle you measure, and write it in the “status” section of the TO-DO poster.
There are many tasks left to do. Please let me know if you need help or have questions, and I’ll see you in 2 weeks!

Meeting Notes from Friday May 1 2009

1. Good luck on finals!
2. Status of car
3. Future endeavors

Meeting Notes from Friday 4/17

1. As you can see, the new website is UP AND RUNNING!! THANK YOU DUSTIN!!!!!
2. The weights are in:
LF 95lbs (34.0%) RF 46lbs (16.4%)
LR 33lbs (11.8%) RR 105lbs (37.6%)
TOTAL WEIGHT: 280lbs

BATTERIES:
Lead Acid—45.0 lbs each * 8 batteries = 360lbs.
(this is the weight of BATTERIES ONLY in the 8-battery pack)
Lithium-Ion –62.41g each (0.13759 lb each)
If we build a pack with 416 cells, 416*0.13759 = 57.24 lbs.
360 -57.24 = 300.76 lbs WEIGHT SAVINGS
**this is the weight of the actual batteries, NOT including the weight of the materials/equipment used in the packs.

SOLAR PANELS:
27lbs each. 27*6 panels = 162lbs for the solar panels.

A special THANKS to Shawn and Grant for weighing the car!!!!

3. The microcontroller design(s) is/are coming along well. LOTS of work left to be done. We’re hoping to have two battery packs designed, built, and installed by the end of summer. Anyone (ECE or otherwise) who wants to volunteer time to this project and has not already spoken up, please LET ME KNOW! I will be happy to have (more) assistance!
4. The body design is coming along well. I will have pics of the progress up shortly! . ANYONE who wants to volunteer time to this project and has not already spoken up, please CONTACT MIKE (migraha@siue.edu) OR ME ( Zack zoester@siue.edu). We will be happy to have (more) assistance!
5. We need someone with a little extra time to sort through some paperwork, scan it into .pdf format, and upload it to the server. This will be an easy task / learning opportunity. Any volunteers?? Contact me (zoester@siue.edu).
6. The Body Mock-Up is not done yet, so our goal for this week and next week is to FINISH IT!!! It’s an easy project, it just takes some time! This week I will be at an IEEE event on Friday, April 24, and thus cannot host a meeting. But (of course), that doesn’t mean everyone else can’t meet to work on the car!! I’ll be at the plant working on it Tuesday evening (April 21). Anyone/everyone else can join me Tuesday, or come on Friday, or feel free to work on it WHENEVER YOU HAVE TIME!!!! If you would like to borrow my CD player/stereo, let me know.
7. Please pay special attention to the tab on this webpage titled “the team.” If anyone wants their name and details added or removed, please contact me (zoester@siue.edu) or Dustin (wedge@ageek.net). This page lists team members and tasks, please let us know if we need to update it for anything we may have forgotten! Thanks!

Meeting Notes From Friday 4/10

1. MEETING THIS FRIDAY, 4/17/09, 2PM at the cooling plant!!!! This week should be exciting, as we have decided to have play-time with some cardboard! We’re going to make a full scale Moch-Up of a body, just to see what it looks like.  Feel free to bring CD’s, I’m going to bring a CD-player so we can listen to some music while we work/play.
2. If the body Moch-Up goes well, maybe we can BUILD it (an actual body) using existing materials. What then?? We ADVERTISE!!!
   –Advertising brings FUNDING. Funding buys a new motor. With a new motor, we can RACE.
   –Advertising also brings new members! (Fall recruitment, etc.)
3. The NEW webpage is almost ready!!! Hoping to have it up and running, perhaps sometime this week. More to come…
4. The BATTERY PACK is a big undertaking. The microcontroller design will be started today (Tuesday). The design will be underway and partially or mostly finished by the end of semester. Hoping to have the new PACKS built and car re-wired by the end of summer.
5. Shawn Ryon will be bringing automotive SCALES (perhaps this Friday??) so we can get some preliminary Weight Measurements!!!
6. Jordan and Meghan are working on the Solar Panel test.  BEFORE FRIDAY, feel free to look at the 2008 RULES on the body. www.ee.siue.edu follow “faculty” to Dr. Muren’s homepage. –>click the link to his WORK page, and then on to the rules!! (also, wear clothes you don’t mind getting DIRTY.)