Engineering Experience 4: Design a Small Solar Vehicle/2013: Team PM8

Introduction

Team Esté consists of a group of students at GroupT - Leuven Engineering College. Their goal is to make a SSV, Small Solar Vehicle. This project runs one semester where at the end a contest is held to decide which of all the competing teams has the best SSV.

Team Esté.

Team Members

Name	E-mail	Function
Tim Theunissen	tim.theunissen@student.groupt.be	Teamleader and electronics manager
Thijs Kestens	thijs.kestens@student.groupt.be	Technical illustrator
Thomas Craessaerts	thomas.craessaerts@student.groupt.be	Notary
Thomas Dewit	thomas.dewit@student.groupt.be	Mechanics manager
Stijn van Damme	stijn.van.damme@student.groupt.be	Quality manager
Sarah van der Want	sarah.van.der.want@student.groupt.be	Fablab manager

Week process

Week 1

At Tuesday we met our new team and jumped into work. Our first deadline contained making a WBS, Gantt chart, cooperation contract and a plan of approach. We also designed a logo. Wednesday we met again to continue working on our deadline.

Week 2

We had our usual meeting on Tuesday and had a labclass about how to measure a solar panel. Our deadline consist of processing these data and finding some values that will ensure best performance of our SSV.

Week 3

We decided to divide our group into two teams. One team will calculate and optimize the values we need for making our SSV. The other team will work on the mechanics and make decisions about the materials and the driving.

Week 4

This week we made some progress on working with Matlab and with the mechanics. There's still a lot of work to do. We disassembled a remote control car to take a look inside. This gave us a better view on how the steering works and how the electronics work.

Week 5

Since we have a deadline next week, we're working very hard to get the work done. The first case that had to be finished for next week is Case SSV Part 1. This case includes calculations about the gear ratio and assumptions on what our maximal velocity will be. Furthermore we have a second case, Case Simulink. This is a simulation program, part of MatLab, and here we can simulate how our SSV will make it to the end of the track and other useful things.

Week 6

With the first big deadline coming closer, we were working very hard. The designing part of the car was set on hold so we could focus on the two cases.

Week 7

On Tuesday we received feedback from our coach about the two cases. Later on that day we started to elaborate our ideas about the design. We decided to give everyone the time to think during the holidays.

Eastern holiday

In de second week of the holidays we all met in Leuven to work on our design. We went to Aitec to buy our axle and bearings.

Week 8

The first items were lasered this week, which was a bit late. We tried to make sure our car was finished by next week, since we had a test race then.

Week 9

This week we further developed our design. Thursday, we finished our axle with gears at the exact gear ratio of 8. This runs very smoothly. We weren't in time to test our vehicle on Tuesday but Thijs and Tim managed to test it on Friday. With the test results we can further optimize our SSV and finish our design.

Week 10

With the deadline for Case SSV Part 2 in sight we divided the assignment among each other to work on it separately. We also continued working on our SSV.

Week 11

This week we had an exposition in the Atrium at Group T with all the other teams. We're proud to say that our car is as good as finished and driving very well. Friday is the deadline for Case SSV Part 2 so everyone's working on that too.

Remote Control Car - disassembled

Gear ratio of 8

SSV

Photos and documents

Official Documents

Cooperation Contract

In order to achieve a productive environment among our team, we signed a cooperation contract to ensure this.

Planning

Planning is key in a project like this. The Gantt Chart tells us how many hours there will be worked on every subject. The WBS (work breakdown structure) shows a good division of the different subjects. The plan of approach is set to clarify our goals.