Fitting the Array

The team has been working overtime this past week to get our new array ready. This has been one of our major projects for the past year and it's great to see it finally coming together. Late last week, the team began cutting and fitting Plascore ribs to the underside of the array. From Sunday through till the meeting on Wednesday, we worked tirelessly to adjust the pieces and glue them in place.



After the ribs were finally done, we had the fun task of mating the array to the lower body. This process began last Thursday, continued through till the weekend, and it will resume this week. It is a long, painful process, but the results will be well worth the extra time in the lab.



There are also a few smaller projects that have seen progress in the last week. Joe, a freshman that has taken interest in fabrication and driving, has been busy working on building a carbon fiber steering wheel for the car. Mitch, along with some help from other members, worked on our MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) box by essentially cutting it in half. With the new solar cells that we are going to install on the car, the system will only require 3 MPPT's, compared to the 6 that the old Gallium Arsenide array used. Friday afternoon, the machine shop hummed with the sound of progress. One of the CNC milling machines was busy carving away aluminum from our upper A-arms in order to make it lightweight. It's easy to say that this process is very exciting for both our design and mechanical teams.

The team will be busy working on the car during spring break, so be sure to follow along here on the blog and on our official Twitter account, SunseekerWMU.

Bronco Pride,
Joshua