Thanks Genasun and EMA Services!

Now that things have settled down a bit and Chopper is back in Boston, we would like to thank Genasun and EMA Services for all the invaluable help they gave us in constructing our battery pack.

First, a huge thanks to Genasun! Alex MeVay and Alexander Hayman of Genasun ( also alums of the team) designed our pack and battery protection system. They were also kind enough to offer us a place to construct the pack as well, and we spent several long days putting together all the batteries, PCBs, and wire cabling. Check out some pictures from the assembly party below!

David screws hardware into some of the PCBs 

 Kelly checks the alignment of the battery tabs before placing the top PCB 

Close-up of the batteries

Julia cuts zip ties holding the two PCB panels together. Almost done!

And of course, another huge thanks to EMA Services. who assembled our BMS boards free of charge. Thanks for helping us out, even during your vacation time!

The team is ready to get started designing again, and we look forward to working with Genasun and EMA Services, as well as all our other sponsors, for our next build cycle. Keep checking the blog, as we'll be posting updates about our progress. 

Our not-so-secret secret...

So if you've been looking closely at some of the pictures we've posted, you may have noticed something unusual...

...our red tires!

It's about time we disclose our secret as rumours have been buzzing around WSC about these.

Adam is interviewed by Japanese TV.

These are custom-made solid polyurethane tires mounted on specially-machined anodized aluminium wheels. Dimensions are: 1 3/8” x 20 3/4”. We have been working all summer with our wonderful and enthusiastic sponsors HSMWorks, Spracher Engineering, and TWT Group to develop these new solar car tires . Special thanks to Anthony Graves, Aidan Bradley, and Bill Spracher for all their hard work with making these possible.

They have a low rolling resistance and thus help make our car highly efficient. We've been test driving them around and so far the numbers are looking good. This morning they passed dynamic scrutineering and we ran our time trial on these.

After the race we plan to continue working with Spracher and TWT Group to further develop these with the hopes of producing a new solar car tire for the open market. Look to see more of these in future races!

[Post-Race Edit]:  As you can read in later blog posts we ended up not running the full race on these tires. We swapped them out Day 1 for moped tires. There were a couple issues with these tires causing them to fail. We will continue testing and developing these over the next couple months to resolve the issue. Stay tuned.

NovaLynx and Gill Instruments sponsor MIT SEVT

Many thanks to NovaLynx and Gill Instruments, who have donated an ultrasonic anemometer and related equipment to our team.

Adopt a Cell!

Now that the Global Green Challenge is over and the new semester is about to begin, the SEVT is actively working on the (still unnamed) vehicle that we hope to race in 2011. In addition to design work, that also means fundraising. A lot of fundraising.

We recently began an "Adopt A Cell" campaign to raise money for the most expensive part of the car, the solar array. For $50, you can adopt one of the 1500 solar cells that will cover Eleanor's successor. You'll also get a nice picture of Eleanor, a subscription to the team newsletter, and you'll be recognized on our website (as well as on this blog).

We've tried to make cell adoption as simple as possible. You can donate with a credit card or send a check. All donations are tax-deductible. Please contact us if you have any questions.


Thanks to the following people who have already adopted cells:

Joseph A. Buttner
Goro Tamai
Muhammad Itani
Wisam R. Omran
Hans Peter Brondmo
Annette and Andy Batzer
Bill Batzer
James M Harvey
Andre C Kelly


-Fiona

Panasonic Provides Equipment for WSC

Our friends at Panasonic just sent us some nice equipment for use during WSC: cameras, camcorders, and SD cards.

Here are some test shots from around the shop:

Thanks to Panasonic.

kelly