Olin REVO Blog

[olinrevo]

CAN Demo works!!!

Jazmin: "And then that one turns on"

Chris: "Oh $^%@" 

Sensing has completed the CAN Demo. We have it working with 3 nodes communicating back and forth. We are currently working on an Sensor LCD which will display a variety of information: speed, state of charge, current current draw, maximum current draw, time, reverse, etc. We are also working on putting together our speedometer system and testing CAN on those two nodes. 

[olinrevo]

Reverse Trike Design

REVO's chassis team has been very busy finishing up the final details on the reverse trike we have been working on this semester.  Our engineering drawing package has been sent to STAM, Inc., a CNC tube bending company.  STAM has decided to sponsor our vehicle by providing us with free bending and notching services along with free tube stock.  This project would not have been able to move on to the fabrication stage without STAM's help and we are very grateful to them for their help!  Stock and hardware orders will be going out within the next few weeks, and once our stock comes in, we can begin fabrication, including TIG welding, sheetmetal work, waterjet parts, and more TIG welding (lots of TIG welding...).  Luckily, our team is not short on TIG-proficient welders!  Check back in later for an update on our fabrication stage for this vehicle!

[olinrevo]

Our Electric Company

Two of our electrical systems, the speedometer display and the battery management system (BMS), were successfully built and tested as prototypes last semester. In the first few weeks of this semester, we created PCB designs for the two systems and underwent the design review process with the team and the ECO (Engineering Change Order) board for final review. Pictured below are the final layout designs:

These boards underwent a lot of editing for accuracy and layout, but we finally sent them out to be manufactured. Advanced Circuits was kind enough to sponsor both of these boards for us, and as can be seen below, they came out great!

  The next steps for these systems are assembly and further testing to ensure that they still function properly after transitioning from prototype to PCB.

 We also still have several electrical projects going on that we are excited about, namely:

Inertial Measurement Unit + GPS (track our kart’s progress)

System Watchdog (to keep the kart safe)

SD Card Data Logger (for debugging)

Hall-effect sensor PCB (to measure the kart’s speed)

 Stay tuned in the coming weeks for updates on these other projects!

[olinrevo]

Spinning the Racing Kart’s Wheels

We have begun a new academic year here at Olin, which means we are back working on putting the finishing touches on our racing kart!  Thanks to our generous sponsors, at the very end of the last semester, we were able to get the kart prototype to spin its wheels (on a lift of course, as the driver restraint system was not in place).  We showcased this milestone in the project at the Spring 2013 Olin Exposition, a biannual event held on campus to showcase student work from throughout the semester.  In front of an excited audience, we flipped the ignition and hit the throttle, and with a violent jerk the powerful Zero electric motor whirred the rear axle to life!  So far this semester, our Chassis team has been working on putting the final touches on the racing kart, getting it ready for its first test drive.  This includes designing and fabricating supports for the seat and harness, redesigning some components including the motor mount, and welding in a new brake caliper mount.  Once the kart is drivable, the frame will be powdercoated and design will begin for some carbon fiber body panels, where we will proudly display the names of our generous sponsors.  FAB week is coming up quick, keep checking in for details!

[olinrevo]

Disassembling the Zero XU. As much as we loved having a gorgeous looking bike for a few days, we knew the day would come when we had to take it apart. After cleaning up all the drool from our team members, we gathered together one afternoon and got down to business. The entire disassembly went off seamlessly, with the battery pack sliding out in a matter of minutes, and the powertrain, motor and all, being extracted in less than two hours. Along the way we made sure to keep all the parts neatly organized and labeled so that assembly of the racing kart can be just as smooth. 

After getting everything apart, our powertrain team decided to make sure everything was in working order. In no time they had the motor up and running off the batteries, separate from the rest of the bike. Next up, getting it on the racing kart!#

[olinrevo]

Zero's Our Hero!

The partnership between REVO and Zero Motorcycles has been a long time in the making. We visited their headquarters in Santa Cruz in January and were impressed by their stable of beautiful bikes and were blown away by their hospitality amidst their 2013 production ramp up. Since then, they have agreed to sponsor us by heavily discounting our purchase of our first professional electric vehicle for study and disassembly, a 2012 Zero XU. Before leaving for break, we unveiled it to the team in a surprise "emergency" meeting.

We would like to thank ZERO for their generous donation as well as Aerospace Robotics for the remaining funds necessary for the purchase of this bike. It's a beautiful piece of technology that we'll be sad to disassemble, but we are more excited to see what ZERO's powertrain can do for the performance of our racing kart. With a speed limit of 55 mph during the EV grand prix, we should gear to have even better acceleration than the already stellar ZERO bike.

[olinrevo]

Regenerative Braking. This semester, the battery box sub-team has undertaken an exciting project that we may later be able to implement into our racing kart. We are studying regenerative braking, a concept based on the idea that vehicles lose a significant amount of energy due to friction while braking. The purpose of regenerative braking is to capture and conserve some of this energy. This can be done using a super capacitor, making a system over 10% more energy efficient. So far, we have been able to model this system on a small scale, and are looking to perfect it before we attempt it on a large scale.

[olinrevo]

A Visit From Belgium

REVO was happy to welcome guests from IMEC and Groep T to our general meeting this week. Here to find fresh Olin talent for some exciting internship positions, we invited them to come check out what we have been working on and more importantly, to meet our team. Some of our team members who previously worked with IMEC and the Formula Group T team were happy to be reunited with their collegues, including a former Olin exchange student. We had fun showing them around and were even able to give a few working demos. It was a great visit and we hope to see some more members of REVO going to work with them in Belgium again this summer!

[olinrevo]

Restoring the Racing Kart

Chassis sub-team has been busy working to bring our used Tony Kart Extreme 1999 back to operational condition including spec-ing out replacement parts, especially the aging brake system and bearings.  Much work has also gone into having a full CAD model of the go-kart so we can begin designing new parts needed to use an all-electric powertrain.  Veteran member Ankur Das is working with new REVO members to design a lightweight, structural roll cage for the racing kart.  Mason Del Rosario and Sean Karagianes are leading the project team to design and fabricate the mounting of the powertrain and batteries as well as optimizing weight distribution.  Joe Kochevar has been working on an Ackerman steering sketch to optimize the Tony Kart steering configuration.  In the near future, we will be working with Zero Motorcycles’ CAD model of their 2012 XU motorcycle, in particular their batteries and motor, in order to begin design and mounting for each.  Stay posted for updates on this exciting project!

[olinrevo]

Switching to Atmel

We recently decided to make the switch from Parallax propellers to Atmel AVR microcontrollers.  Originally, we wanted to use Parallax products because they had generously provided us with their technology to experiment with.  They sent us a selection of their propellers to choose from, and we spent a few weeks learning the Parallax language.  At this point, we have decided that while Parallax presents an interesting opportunity for our team to gain valuable programming experience, the risks from lack of technical support and the time required to learn the technology outweigh the benefits.  We started looking at other potential ways of managing the sensor inputs and outputs.  We had a few criteria for choosing a new management system - it had to be programmed in a usable language and our team members needed to have some experience programming in that language.  This really only left one option: Atmel.  Atmel devices are programmed using C, which is well-supported and well-known by our team, as the Powertrain subteam moved to Atmel microcontrollers and AVR Studio last year for our motor controller's control board.  We also do not have much need for the higher end computing offered by Atmel, so we decided to go with the AVR series.  We recently recieved new Atmel microcontrollers and an Atmel Dragon AVR to program them and are eager to keep pushing forward with our BMS.

[olinrevo]

Thanks to Olin's Go Bikes

We were just given a used electric bike frame by Olin's Go-Bike group. This dedicated group of students takes care of Olin's community bikes that are free for anyone to use. Their donation will really help kickstart our bike project and will give us a good start to make it run again. Though it still has the motor and controller, most of the wires have been cut, the electronics have been opened, and the batteries are nowhere to be found. looks like we'll be making our own battery pack.

[olinrevo]

Official Olin Organization

What doest that mean? What is the difference between an Olin club and an organization? Well, for starters, now we can directly access all of our funds. If we bring in sponsor donations, we don't have to go through the red-tape of the college in order to use it. This also means we should be able to directly track where all of our team money is going and we'll be able to report to sponsors how we spend their generous donations. This is also a milestone for our little group, as any Olin organization must have three things before they become official: regular weekly meetings, participation in school and external events, and over a year of being a "club." So hurray for our first official anniversary of being a club and our transition into an officially recognized organization. Thank you Olin College!

[olinrevo]

Scrap Go Kart Frame

We were donated a nice old go-kart frame from Charles Hughes, through his son and our classmate Silas. It's a solid frame, but it's definitely seen some action. We will be working on electrifying it and making it go fast!

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