As the Solar Car Club starts rolling into the ideation and designing process each of the different teams sat down and started brainstorming what needed to be done to ensure that everything can run smoothly for the next couple of months. The mechanical team split up into 2 sub-teams, the interior design and exterior design (which I am a part of). We decided to create a flowchart of our planning and modeling process, and from there we distributed a number of man hours to each section of the chart according to how long we predicted each section would take. After that we accumulated a list of skills that each member would need to acquire before we began the building process. I'm very excited to dive into the designing process and eventually the building process. As a new member of the Solar Car Club, I am very excited to learn from and alongside those who were on the team last year.
Mechanical Introductory Week
This past week was the first time we had time for clubs during school, and we had a great turn out for our first week. We have many new and promising members joining the team. On Tuesday, the Leadership Team gave a presentation introducing the new members to the solar car challenge and gave some of the expectations for being a part of the race team. Then on Wednesday, we printed out the new rules to give everyone a chance to read them, and we did some brainstorming. The ideation sessions consisted of two seniors, one junior, two sophomores and two freshmen each. This served to get ideas flowing, while everyone had the rules in front of them and for everyone to begin to get to know each other. Then everyone was instructed to take their rule packets home and read them. The next day on Thursday we broke up into groups based on new members' interests. I lead one of the two mechanical groups in discussion about the pros and cons of a vast array of different designs of different parts of solar and electric vehicles. I look forward to next week when we will begin developing skills in all the new team members, as well as reinforcing and growing new skills in veteran members. We will also begin to start the design on the car for this year next week.