“Team,

Thanks to everyone that made an effort to help out this year.  We put in hours upon hours of hard work as we chased our goal of creating a working RCCI series hybrid vehicle.  Unfortunately the odds were stacked against us and we hit too many roadblocks to meet our goal of having the vehicle finished by the end of the semester.  I think I can speak for everyone when I say that I’m disappointed that we don’t have a working vehicle as I leave the team, but we did accomplish more than we realize over the course of the year.

University of Wisconsin Hybrid Vehicle Team 2011-2012

Over Spring break the Mechanical Team was working hard in the shop to get the motor mount plate in the vehicle and other small projects done in preparation for our new motor.

Motor mount plate in the vehicle coupled to a cardboard aided design of our new motor. Pictured: Grant and Chris

After Spring break the team attended the 10th Annual Science Expedition at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery, to talk with kids and adults about our hybrid vehicle and our team.

People listen intently to Mike (Controls Leader) as he explains how the eMoove operates

For the month of April, two new members on the Mechanical Team won the Mover n Shaker Award for all their hard work in the shop and dedication to the team.

Grant accepts the Mover n Shaker Award for all the intense machining and welding he has done for the team in the shop, as well as for talking with people at the Science Expedition. He is pretty excited.

Bolun accepts the Mover n Shaker Award for helping out at the Science Expedition, assisting around the shop, and for his determination to get all his green shop pass upgrades

The new front powertrain of the eMoove Series Hybrid will be an engine-generator (genset) mated together with a custom-machined adapter assembly. Huge strides were made this week towards completing this assembly, as the large flat plat that makes up the engine side of the adapter was fabricated on our 3-Axis Haas CNC Milling machine. Many thanks to Corky Lederer for his help on the machining!

Thank you Glass Nickel for sponsoring the Hybrid Vehicle Team.

Earlier this week the controls team got the dyno engine running, allowing the team to start testing the vehicle. Then yesterday a few members from the mechanical team modified the differential elastomers allowing the EMoove to be drivable again. The vehicle was driven around the engineering campus at low speeds but after some more testing the drive quality should improve. There is still a lot of work to be done on the dyno so let’s keep on truckin!!

EMoove near Camp Randall

After taking a break from the shop it’s time to come back and continue work for RCCI. Game plan is to head out to do some dyno testing at Ford before school starts. To complete this goal the Mechanical Team is continuing to work on projects for dyno, while the Controls Team datalogger setup, work on lower brake pedal values, and increasing torque limits.

After a long night before finals week, we met our goal: all driveshaft parts machined and tacked together. It fits splendidly. Special thanks to Matt, Jake, Will, Grant, Chris, and Eric. This could not have gotten done without all of these skilled machinists. Way to go guys!!!

The new driveshaft

The following day, the Controls Team drove the car for a few test runs. After the test runs the Controls Team work on diffusing the noise from the gearbox, working on coding, and fix other issues.

The Dyno Stand Project is lead by Rishi and David

As of November 13, David Stone, Rishi Shah, and Jake were able to finish mounting the engine and transmission on the dyno stand. Special thanks to the team members for working on projects to help the team reach this point for the stand. With Thanksgiving approaching quickly the team continues to work hard to complete other components for the stand.

The Controls Team continued working on the controller. The Mechanical Team continued to work on individual projects and finished with mounting the engine before the Thanksgiving Break.

Members from the Mechanical Team working on the EMoove

The “Mover & Shaker” is awarded to one team member that put in extra effort and showed their dedication to the team.  Maybe they came to every group meeting that week, maybe they spent their entire Friday night in the shop, or maybe they were just leading by example.

Chee accepts the Mover n Shaker award from Assistant Team Leader, Will O'Connor

Chee put in a lot of time with the Mechanical Team trying to get the EMoove ready for the Homecoming Parade.