Last Weekend and Final Exams

There was a lot of activity at the shop this past Saturday, as everyone was working hard on various tasks within each sub-team. Time is really flying by... it seems like only yesterday that the latest semester was just beginning.

Once again, I can only really speak for the mechanical team in terms of what was accomplished at the garage last week, but I'm sure Tim can fill you all in on the latest electrical-related stuff that has been going on.

The first thing we did on Saturday was dig out our prototype top shell from out of the snow in front of our shop. We left our shell outside a couple weeks ago, because we simply don't have the space to accommodate it in the garage, and after the snow dump that we experienced recently, the people working the snow plows at the grounds building apparently thought it would be a pretty funny joke to completely cover the shell in snow :P



Our seat is completely done now and pictures of both the foam/balsa core material base (which was implemented to house the bolts securing the seat to the bottom of the shell and ensure the 27 degree angle of incline) as well as the seat in its final position can be seen below.





Apart from these activities, the team was also busy with more rolling resistance testing of various tires, doing practice lay-ups in our top-shell mold, and finishing up the array stand design (it's ALMOST there... ).

Since the team watched 'Race the Sun' a couple weeks ago, we have recently made a tribute to Halle Barry's grossly simplified explanation of how a solar car works. This tribute can be seen below; note that our car only uses 99% of the energy generated, and gives back 1% to the sun in the "cycle" :) ... thanks Mico for adding that.



Didn't get too many pics of the electrical or business team this week (actually pictures of our Saturday workdays are pretty sparse lately since our camera charger magically disappeared a few weeks ago), but there will be many more pictures and updates to come as we have many important upcoming tasks scheduled. We will definitely be sure to post at least a few pictures of the eating competition between Tim and I during the teams annual Christmas potluck. We all know who's going to win that haha.

Finals are also coming up for everyone on the team, so most of the team will be on a semi-hiatus, but since we can't afford to take a break because our main lay-up is upcoming, you don't have to worry about receiving less updates from the team. On the contrary, there will be more stuff to update everyone about.

Stay tuned!

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager