Solar Car Club » Meeting

Meeting Notes 8-6-10

MechEngineerMike — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 23:35:49 +0000

>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

ahelton — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:01:04 +0000

Hey all, we had a pretty good meeting Monday, and we have decided to go forward with the solar resource makeover. For those who don’t know this car, here’s a picture:

With this in mind we need to start booking it. But first things first.

we need to get the formula car teams frame (which we are going to base our design off of since their frame is very very similar to this car design. We will modify it to be lighter and fit our uses.
We need to put this car into inventor or abacas and do simulations. We MUST test if this car will tip in the figure 8 and the slalom. If it does, modify the wheel placements until it no longer tips.
Not required but we need to check cross winds to see if it will lift us like a leaf in a gentle breeze.
Once the frame is close to being finalized we need to get a model of the body done. I would like both a 3D model as well as a real world model, out of clay, wood, whatever so we can put it in a wind tunnel and see what it does first hand. The body should be tweaked from the original to provide the least amount of drag. This goes for our solar pannels in the back, we need to design them as aerodynamic as possible.
We are confirming with andy and steve that the gumstix driver support system will be the way to go. We are confirming that it will do everything we want it to do (we are pretty sure it will) this will give us a really neat LCD on the steering wheel for all of our driver functions.
The battery pack is getting redesigned to be more modular (which is what i wanted it to be in the beginning but you know how that goes) The world solar challenge only allows 22kg of lithium-poly batteries, so our current pack won’t do since its setup for 25kgs. We have enough batteries to make a 2nd 22kg pack so i’m working on redesigning that. Please let me know if anyones interested in helping with that.
The world solar challenging also has limited us to 3 m^2 of GaAs cells. thats not very much. This is one reason why we decided to go with the more modular design.
The water proofing on the old car is about finished, we also have panel stands installed. Just a few more things and the old car will be ready to go. Please let me know if you have time and want to finish the car up.

This summer has been fairly productive, lets keep it that way. I would like to thank everyone who came to the meeting and offered their input. I will schedule another meeting soon on a Friday or Saturday so some of our working members can join in and the discussion.

To-Do Poster, Notes 6/17/09

zacko — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:49:59 +0000

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

zacko — Tue, 05 May 2009 00:38:45 +0000

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

Meeting Notes from Friday 4/17

zacko — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:00:56 +0000

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

Dustin Sanders — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:11:43 +0000

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.
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.)
The NEW webpage is almost ready!!! Hoping to have it up and running, perhaps sometime this week. More to come…
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.
Shawn Ryon will be bringing automotive SCALES (perhaps this Friday??) so we can get some preliminary Weight Measurements!!!
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.)

Meeting Notes from Friday 4/3/09

zacko — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:53:47 +0000

1 I will be able to attend a 2PM Friday meeting this week, but I will not be
able to stay long. I will be working on the solar car late thursday evening
(6PM-?) and again Friday morning (10AM-12PM). If anyone wants to join me then,
or feel free to work on it any other time of the week, that would be great!

Some of the undertakings for this past/current week:
-Schematic of the wiring – Jake
-dimensions/prices of brake lines – Zack
-Parking Brake design – Mike/Keith
-Microcontroller/battery box – Dustin and Raquel
-cleaning the mud off the solar panels – Keith
-Body Design – Mike and Zack