On Wednesday, Sept. 24 at 7:30 p.m., the PACE lab in the
Engineering Building was filled with new, and a few returning, faces for the
official start of the EcoCAR 3season. Miriam Di Russo is the teams Engineering
Manager, previously a member of EcoCAR 2’s Control Team, opened the meeting
with a short video about the overall competition and followed it with another
clip from a student’s perspective. The 17 potential recruits soaked up the
information and their faces reflected the magnitude of the upcoming project.
This challenge will, for some of them, take four years to complete (2014-2018).
Adam Zhang picked up where Russo left off by introducing the
responsibilities of the Control Team. Zhang is also a previous member, having
been a part of the control team during EcoCAR 2, and spoke about the team’s new
projects for the next four years. He explained the importance of focusing on
defining reliable vehicle powertrain control algorithms and emphasized how
beneficial it will be to work closely with the system modeling and simulation
team in this area.
After another video, this time a demo of a previous car’s
performance, Zhang introduced the teams “mechanical guy,” Xianfeng Yan. Yan’s presentation was all about the packaging aspect of
EcoCAR 3. Their upcoming tasks include creating a powertrain system design that
can be integrated in the space allotted without interference from the rest of
the car’s components. He continued his presentation by highlighting other
endeavors the team must concentrate on, such as the analysis aspect and thermal
analysis.
Rounding out the team leaders was Courtney Zemke, the
Communications Team Manager. Zemke introduced her personal responsibilities,
the requirements of EcoCAR 3 as a whole and how each team will have to cooperate
for the best possible work to be accomplished. She reminded everyone that even
though the Communications Team will take care of most of the media relations,
EcoCAR 3 is a great opportunity to enhance everyone’s networking skills. Team
members must donate their time for community hours by writing for the
newsletter, volunteering to take photos, performing educational outreach and
even assisting with video production.
After stressing the importance of team integration, Zemke
briefly touched on the upcoming Odyssey Day on October 17 as EcoCAR 3’s first
chance to gain attention from WSU’s publics. She closed her presentation by
asking everyone to take out their smartphones and to go join Hybrid Warriors
EcoCAR 3 social media pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up with
the latest updates and to participate in future contests.
Faculty Advisory Dr. Jerry Ku took the floor to offer his
wisdom after his involvement with EcoCAR 2. Dr. Ku addressed the potential
members with a positive attitude and described how EcoCAR prepares students to
“hit the ground running” when starting a new job due to already acquiring
sophisticated skills. He also cautioned the team to be prepared for a timescale
they haven’t experienced before and how crucial it will be to stay engaged. He
offered some tips such as putting in community hours by playing volleyball when
not attending sub-team design review meetings.
