Lessons Learned: A Timely Conclusion
After all the planning, brainstorming, concept generation, and material selection that was carefully and painstakingly performed, in the end the budget was the bottle-neck in the design process. The money ran out and plans had to be scrapped. Designs had to be simplified due to cost. concepts had to be thrown out due to complexity. Materials had to be substituted for a more simpler configuration. TO make matters worse, the team goals and objectives kept being compromised. From a competitive solar car to a working prototype, to just a car that was put together, to a parade car that could be used to promote sponsership, to a car that…??? Who knows what it will be next year?
Keeping it simple was the main theme of the semester. Its not very exciting, but it certainly got the job done. After all was said and done, the car actually moved on its own power. The drivetrain proved to be worthy of a rudimentary solar car. In a nutshell, it turned out to be an electric vehicle with a solar charger. Ultimately, that is all we could have hoped for. A solar car “Quick and Dirty”.
Optimumly, the University of Utah now has a viable solar vehicle in which to design and test solar technologies on and eventually fine-tune the “U-Factor” into a competitive solar racer to compete in the American Solar Challenge. Nuff Said!