OLIN ELECTRIC MOTORSPORTS
Formula SAE Team dedicated to building a formula-style vehicle and annually competing at static and dynamic events.
Olin Electric Motorsports is an undergraduate organization at Olin College focused on educating engineers through the development and manufacture of electric vehicles. Since I joined Olin Electric Motorsports 3 years ago, I have gained tremendous social and technical experiences. I spent my first two years as part of transmission/cooling team, and on my third year I joined the electrical subteam to help out with the sensing system in the vehicle.
2017-2018
In 2017-2018 year, as a cooling subteam member, I conducted numerous experiments on the existing cooling system in the car to calculate heat lost through radiators and the flow rate throughout the system.
Using the data collected, I positioned the radiator so that the radiator is fully exposed to natural air flow. Furthermore, I looked for different pump that could provide sufficient flow rate for both motor and motor controller.
2018-2019
In 2018-2019 academic year, as a transmission/cooling subteam lead, I led a team of 5 and designed a new drivetrain for our vehicle Mk.IV. The goal for the transmission this year was to ensure the assembly of the drivetrain onto the chassis easier.
I developed simulations to calculate optimal gear ratio for the vehicle and forces acting acting on the drivetrain system. After designing the drivetrain system in CAD, my teammates and I fabricated the parts and assembled the overall system.
We first calculated the ideal gear ratio for our drivetrain by modeling the time it takes for the vehicle to complete the acceleration test. Based on the model, the ideal gear ratio that would complete the acceleration even in the least amount of time was between 3.3 and 3.4, and with the availability of the gears available, we decided to go with 3.4 gear ratio.
In order to calculate forces in response to the motor torque, a free body diagram was drawn to calculate forces on mounting points. Based on the calculated force, we ran FEA on our designed parts to calculate the minimum factor of safety of each part.
My teammates and I fabricated each component in the assembly. Machines involved for the fabrication were CNC mill, lathe, waterjet.
We first calculated the ideal gear ratio for our drivetrain by modeling the time it takes for the vehicle to complete the acceleration test. Based on the model, the ideal gear ratio that would complete the acceleration even in the least amount of time was between 3.3 and 3.4, and with the availability of the gears available, we decided to go with 3.4 gear ratio.
2019-2020
In 2019-2020 academic year, I was the electrical subteam member responsible for designing the PCB for the infrared sensor that measured the tire temperature. Thought PCB was successfully fabricated, we could not test the functionality of the board due to COVID shutdown.