Relectric Car Team’s Technical Advancements (2021-2022)
Relectric has continued to strive towards a green, electric vehicle powered future. To this end, our team has made various technical advancements, and each of our subteams is currently pushing to achieve its goals.
Geomatics:
The Geomatics team is divided into three sub-teams. This includes the navigation team, the sensors team, and the data collection team. They have not started working on their projects yet for this year due to the busy recruiting season but they will begin their projects very soon.
The navigation team is working towards implementing GPS into the vehicle. The team ran into trouble last year getting the software to run fast enough in real time with the raspberry pi. This year the goal is to find solutions to get it fully functional and work in real-time.
The sensors team is working on implementing a blind spot detection system using ultrasonic sensors. Once this is completed, their next steps will be to look to possibly work on assisted parking or a backup camera system. Lastly, the data collection team will be continuing to work on another small project that was started last year, however, this is not the main focus of the Geomatics Team. The data collection team will be responsible for collecting data about the car with accelerometers and gyroscopes. This will help the team find patterns and relationships between the acceleration, hill incline, power draw of the car.
Mechanical:
The mechanical team is currently continuing to work on the center console of the car. Currently, they are on the third revision of the centre console, and are in the process of figuring out and finalizing the small details. The second project that the Mechanical team is working on is the battery box. They have a functional box at the moment, however, there are a few technical issues associated with this box. Their plan for the rest of the school year is to redesign the battery box with PVC and change its geometry to accommodate hardline water cooling.
Electrical:
By the end of the Fall semester, the electrical team is planning to get the car running and ensure that any requirements for it being road-legal on the electrical side of things are met. The team is currently working on connecting some major components of the car together, including but not limited to our: Battery Management System (BMS), Motor Controller (MC), motor, and battery charger.
Future plans of the Electrical team include doing research into and starting to develop open-source and affordable versions of various components including but not limited to a BMS, an MC, and a battery charger. This will likely start this semester, alongside getting the car running. Even if we finish a design for each of those soon, this design work will likely be an ongoing project for at least the foreseeable future (the next few years) of the club.
Software:
The software team is currently onboarding our newest members and introducing them to our codebase. Our user interface is currently undergoing a refresh to make all the current features easier to access while driving. Our systems team is currently working on a project to better integrate our existing user interface with electrical components within the car. This year we are hoping to develop new features on the system side to support data logging, electrical integration, and communication implementation. The user interface is also working on the dashboard interface, interactive car views, and real-life testing.
Business:
The business team has three sub-teams: The marketing team, the finance team, and the external team. The marketing team is currently focused on spreading awareness of the Relectric brand through social media posts and other initiatives. The finance team is working on revamping the current cash flow and income statements. They have also started to forecast the future costs for Relectric and are updating the budget. The external team continues to collaborate with our current sponsors and is always looking for new, like-minded, sponsors to provide resources to Relectric and help spread the brand. The Business team is also looking to develop team traditions within Relectric to help build the community and Identity of Relectric. Specifically, the team is looking to have both internal events in Calgary and collaborative events with our other teams at Queens University and in Florida. Finally, with the completion of the Volvo quickly approaching, the business team has begun to look at the next steps for the Relectric team.