http://www.theshorthorn.com/news/uta-racing-to-compete-with-electric-car-this-summer/article_02d73a1e-c60c-11e5-927d-6b8aa73def3c.html UTA Racing to compete with electric car this summer [20160128] Kathryn Cargo
[images / Gabrielle Hodges http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theshorthorn.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/62/962cd11e-c5f5-11e5-b835-632e555d5f64/56aa6c5430909.image.jpg Mechanical engineering junior Greg Tometich works in the machine shop on Jan. 28 in Woolf Hall http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theshorthorn.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/7e/97e252d6-c5f5-11e5-ab05-b37588ef219c/56aa6c570fd42.image.jpg Mechanical engineering junior Olan Blount works on the 2003 ice car on Jan. 28 in Woolf Hall http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theshorthorn.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/9/bd/9bde9548-c5f5-11e5-8ec9-bf40d2142757/56aa6c5db7229.image.jpg Mechanical engineering senior Jerrad Frank works on parts on Jan. 28 in Woolf Hall ] UTA Racing will be the first American Formula SAE team to fly an electric vehicle out of the country in August. For the last 3 1/2 years, the team has been designing its first electric car, said Randy Long, electrical engineering graduate student and team embedded hardware and software lead. The team has started manufacturing the vehicle, which will be able to speed up to 60 miles per hour in 2.2 seconds. The team is adding the final touches to the frame, he said. Long joined in December 2012, six months after the team started designing the car. The team built and entered a hybrid car in a competition back in 2011, which gave them the idea to build an electric car, he said. Long is passionate about the vehicle and working on its software, he said. “I’m excited about the electric car enough to put about 12 hours a day, seven days a week,” Long said. “I didn’t have a winter break. I spent about 14 hours a day writing software over the break. I only stopped when I was sick for six days.” The team will attend Formula Student Germany International Design Competition in Hockenheim, Germany, Aug. 9 through 14 where it will race its electric vehicle against 40 other international teams. The majority of the team is made up of students who joined after designing began on the electric vehicle, said Audrey Porter, electrical engineering graduate student and electric vehicle team captain. She said she joined UTA Racing in January 2015 because she was interested in the design of the electric vehicle the group was developing. The vehicle has four motors total, with one attached to each wheel. This is different than the combustion vehicle that has one large engine, Porter said. The team is designing the gears in each motor, the computer systems behind them, the frame, the body and every other piece of the vehicle, she said. Each part has to be made from scratch, and building it will not be easy because they have no examples to fall back on, Porter said. “It’s been an enormous challenge because with the combustion car you’re able to rely on previous year designs,” she said. “The team has been building these combustion cars for about 30 years. With the electric car, it’s something the team has never done before. Everyone is teaching themselves how to do it. We can rely on alumni for the general frame design, but that’s it.” The team does as much manufacturing in their shop as possible, such as the frame, Porter said. The team’s shop doesn’t have the capacity to manufacture some parts, which it designs and send to a machine shop. The team consistently designs as they build the vehicle, but sometimes a design won’t work, and the team tries a different one. “It’s the small victories throughout that keep you going,” she said. “You personally spent 200 hours designing a part and it finally comes back from the manufacturer and it’s perfect.” The vehicle has 15 separate computers that communicate through a network, Long said. He said he has gone through six major versions of operation systems for the vehicle. Vikas Pawar, mechanical engineering graduate student, said he works on torque vectoring for the vehicle, which acts as a traction control system, providing turning control and making it impossible for it to spin out. Pawar said he is also working on a program that would let the vehicle know the coefficient of friction on the road, an extra step he’s taking for the competition as well as his graduate thesis project, he said. Details about the vehicle have to be perfect at competition, Long said. When designing, they make sure to follow the rule book, which is about 180 pages thick, he said. If one detail does not follow the rules, the team can’t compete until the problems are fixed. “For example, there is a rule that says we have to have our undertray a certain distance from the tire,” Long said. “These are all standards that we have to follow. If the undertray is in the wrong spot or the frame rides too low or something else is wrong with the car, it could be anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours to fix that, or we just go home if it’s a big enough problem.” The team will also compete in May at the Formula SAE Michigan competition in Brooklyn, Michigan, and in June at the Formula SAE Lincoln competition in Lincoln, Nebraska. The team will race its combustion vehicle in Michigan and the electric vehicle in Nebraska. [© 2016 The Shorthorn] ... https://www.facebook.com/teamutaracing/ UTA Racing Formula SAE ... https://www.formulastudent.de/fsg/visitors/ FSG 2016 8/9-14 Hockenheim.de ... [dated] http://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/spring-2015/features/speed-racer.php ... an all-electric vehicle the team plans to unveil April 25. It will be the first UTA Formula car to compete in both the United States and Germany ... 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