Welcome back to the Team Relectric blog! We’ve missed you and we look forward to updating you on the team’s progress more regularly. Since our last update, the Relectric family has grown with more students and sponsors. Currently, we are a collaborative team of about 60 people, many of whom are students that have not been able to participate in a club before due to the online-learning circumstances and limited on-campus activities of the previous couple of years.
Currently, the clubs central focus is to complete the development and testing of the 1966 Volvo P220. At the time of this writing, the club believes that 70% of the development has been completed and our goal is to complete the project by Summer 2023. Outside of the main project, the team has the ambition to introduce itself to more sponsors and partnerships and host more public events to bring awareness to the club and the core values of the team.
A few words from the leads of the different sections of Team Relectric:
Executive Lead, Ratik Kapoor, opens with the following message: “As the club founder and lead, I’m eager to get the Volvo pulling under its own power this year, and for successful integration of our technology stack! Covid over the past two years unfortunately meant significantly less interaction with our car, which delayed our timelines. This year, we’re poised for success with a fantastic team to see our first car fully operational, with modern amenities like Bluetooth, CarPlay, and navigation built in!”
The business team lead of this club has consolidated so its members each share the responsibilities of external, communications and marketing. The business team lead Anastasia Sheveliov shares her summer highlights and the next steps for the club. “Over the summer the business team organized an interview with CTV’s Kevin Fleming (https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/mobile/university-of-calgary-students-turning-vintage-car-into-electric-vehicle-1.5918406?cache=ftdpqpcfvtwjihs). It was so exciting to share our work with him! This upcoming year my goal for the business team is to continue gaining public awareness of this project by reaching out to different media outlets and holding in person events! I am also looking forward to exciting opportunities that will come after wrapping up Relectrics first EV!”
Mechanical engineering lead Kalen Cameron shares the progress over the summer and future goals with the Volvo: “The mechanical crew will put in a lot of effort in the coming year as we get closer to finishing the 1966 Volvo P220 modification. After a fantastic summer of creating a contemporary dashboard, our attention will be on finishing the dash’s assembly, testing the vehicle’s range and power, and guaranteeing a comfortable driving experience.”
Software lead Brooke Kindlemanshears the goals of her team for the upcoming year: “This year, the software team is looking to complete the connection between our frontend and backend programs, and get our work connected to the rest of the car. For the frontend user interface, our primary goals are finishing our infotainment system and dashboard, so the driver has a way to interact with the car and safely know the status of it as they’re driving. Our systems team is looking to connect our backend code to the car’s hardware, such as distance sensors and the motor, to get a live data feed running between the driver and the car itself. We’re also looking to develop software to allow us to use Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in the car so the driver can listen to music and navigate with their favourite map platform without sacrificing system performance. Overall, it’s looking to be a busy year but we’re excited to get to work and continue watching this project come to life.”
The geomatics team lead, Nurgul Akhshatayeva, shoes the progress the team has made towards the Volvo so far. “My role on the geomatics team is to oversee the development of the navigation system and proximity sensors. Our goal is to enrich the EV experience by incorporating software, electrical and geospatial technologies, and so far, we have been able to use OpenCV with Python for image processing and computer vision tasks.”
Electrical engineering team lead, Amrit Mahendrarajah, has this to say about his teams’ goal for this year: “The Electrical team is looking to finish the installation of the Motor, Motor Controller, Battery, and Battery Management system into the vehicle. This should allow for the team to complete early driving tests on the vehicle. This will then pave the way for full integration of the Infotainment system and driver assistance features being worked on by the Software and Geomatics teams, respectively.”
As you read, ambitions are high, and the expectations of the upcoming year are apparent across the members of this club. These blogs will bring some more insight to the project as time goes on and discuss other elements that the team wishes to share as the news breaks. The team is looking forward to meeting you at future events!
Many thanks to this year’s sponsors of Team Relectric and to the members of the team, new and returning. If you have any questions, please contact us here!