We're Back Baby

Today, in Humble, Texas, the beginnings of our electric vehicle conversion began. I think I can speak for the whole group in saying that we have not been this excited about our electric car since the inception of the project in January 2014. We started some real learning today about what is going to be going on in our car when it's driving.

Adam, one of our mentors for the J term, led us through putting together a DC motor. After that, we put a few together ourselves, and we were all surprised at the weight of the pieces but very appreciative that there's only four parts to the motor. The motor was made up of the thick steel housing with coils strapped on the inside. One of the ends of the motor was attached with the shaft in a way to let it rotate freely, and the other end had brushes made of carbon that would brush against the commutator, another part attached to the shaft. While this may sound complicated, once you have the motor in your hands and put it together yourself, it all makes sense.

We also finally moved the car out of the elements and into the workshop we will be using to work on the car. Before the end of the day, we had removed the hood and trunk of the car and propped it up on car jacks so that we can easily remove the engine tomorrow. 

Tomorrow I'm really excited to make more headway into the project and strip out the parts of the car that need to be taken out. We should be lifting out the engine tomorrow and doing some more cleaning. 

Another exciting part of the day was seeing how enthusiastic and willing to participate the new members of the group are. Garret and North showed their car knowledge in conversation and jumped right in with volunteering. I can see that the club will be left in good hands with the underclassmen after we graduate.