| Date Completed: 29 November 2006 |
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Table of Contents |
| Team: Solar Car |
With the Solar Car already having batteries and a motor, the Solar Car needed a driver interface in order to control the acceleration and velocity of the car. This interface was tremendously important in allowing the Solar Car to begin moving. With an extremely confined environment around both the driver’s hands and feet, the accelerator needed to be space conservative. Furthermore, with the Solar Car’s budget being very tight, the solution to the accelerator problem needed to be particularly inexpensive.
Some of the requirements and considerations that the Solar Car’s accelerator needed to meet in order to accomplish its task were:
The above requirements and the following specifications were facilitated by performing lab work and design selection methodology.
In order to fit the needs of the Solar Car Team, the accelerator needed to be:
The concepts thought of and the tools used during the generation process can be downloaded from the links below.
The QFD and the ProE isometric views (2 views for each of the top candidates) made to help refine the accelerator design can be downloaded below.
The information for the final selection of the hand lever as the accelerator, namely the QFD and a ProE engineering drawing, can be downloaded below.
It was found that the most conventional solution is not always the best. Furthermore, it was found that clear guidelines of requirements and specifications early on in the design selection process tremendously speeds up the process. Also the end result is much more specific and exact to solve the problem(s). Another lesson learned was that even after a design has been selected and implemented, the design can be improved or even combined with other ideas thought of during the design process.
Continue to Problem Statement Page
Or head to the Lessons Learned Page
