Thanks to Missouri

We'd like to give a big shout out to the Missouri S&T Solar Car team for all their help. You guys have been great with helping our members and answering all the questions we have. We'd like to wish everyone a great holiday season!

Meeting!

Another meeting! :) The Drive-A-Thon has been moved to November 6th, make sure you're there! We're working on getting funds and sending out the newsletter, along with designs today!

Meeting!

Another meeting! We're working on designs for the car and preparations for the EXPO! Don't forget, Drive-A-Thon is October 22, and the EXPO is November 6!

Meeting! Drive-A-Thon has been changed to October 22! Update your calendars! :)

Sponsor Announcement

We would like to thank The Ratliff Group.  They met with the team earlier this week.  The Ratliff Group has agreed to continue their relationship with Coppell Solar.  We are happy to announce that the Ratliff Group will continue as a Gold level sponsor for the 2012 season.

The Ratliff Company, LLC was founded in 2002 with the goal of providing independent representation for the Commercial Development and Automotive Industry that was missing in the market at that time. Since then, the firm has been honored to be involved in a wide variety of projects and to continues to perform projects for former and repeat clients, their friends and business associates.

We invite you to see more about The Ratliff Group at www.ratliffgroup.com.

Mentor/Volunteer Orientation Change

Sorry for the change, but we have to move the mentor/volunteer orientation to a new day.  We will offer it on two different days.  Tuesday 9/27 and Thursday 10/6.  Both will be at 7pm still.  We are trying to get the lecture hall.  If that doesn't work, we will meet in C203.  Thanks for your understanding.

Parade

The students had a lot of fun in the Homecoming Parade on Monday.  Here is a photo of the Solar Car as it made its way down the parade route.  If you have other photos to add, please send them in.  We will also be uploading these to our photo site.

Volunteer help - No experience necessary

Our team need your help.  We have record numbers of students participating.  No experience is required.  We need all kinds of help.  If you are able to help in any way, we will have an orientation meeting on Thursday, 9/29 at 7pm in the Engineering Classroom (C203).

• Mentors for helping students (technical, business, operations, technology, etc.)
• Lab/classroom monitors
• Meals/snacks
• Transportation
• Fundraising
• All kinds of other help.

Homecoming Parade

We had a great time at the homecoming parade.  This was the first year we were able to get all of the teams together for it.  The MATE Team did a great job with the mock-up and bubble machine.  Everyone had a blast and the weather was perfect.  Thanks to all the parents and supporters who showed up and cheered for us.  A huge thanks to David Gill for towing the trailer for us!  See you in December at the Christmas Parade of Lights.

Parade prep

Nicholas Cage eat your heart out. We just hot wired the car.

Brakes

We broke the brake cable on the main brakes last week.  Thanks to Mr. Cowan, we are now getting those repaired.  Josh and Carter are getting them fixed right now in the lab.

Tuesday work

The team did a great job.  We have several more new members today.  The officers did great at getting them on board. 

Yesterday's Meeting

Yesterday at 9am the team came up to drive the car around and take some data. We found a break in our brake cable that we are fixing right now. We're looking forward to driving in the homecoming parade!

Labor Day Testing

We got the car out this morning to start training the new members and to begin prepping for the Homecoming Parade.  Good thing we did.  The team learned a lot today and we discovered a broken brake line.  All is well and we will be ready for the parade.  We made several laps around the parking lot.

Team's working hard to get the team running into a regular routine so we can be more productive.

Todays Meeting

We are working on the homecoming parade and planning for potential upcoming events like the Drive a thon.

School Board Recognition

The 2011 team will be recognized at the School Board Meeting on Monday, August 29th.  Way to go team!

Lab

The team worked in the lab all day Saturday getting it cleaned up and rearranged so that we have a good place to work.

First official meeting!

Today's the first official meeting of the 2011/12 school year! We just elected leadership positions and everyone has their assigned groups.

Race Wrap up

The car did great.  We logged in 325.5 miles over the 7 sessions.  We were able to run the entire race and coasted in on fumes.  Great job team.  We are looking forward to next summer when we race from Dallas to California.

Racing Day Three

Today we had a great run! Throughout the day, the clouds caused us to slow down a bit but we were able to maintain a steady pace. In the morning session, our team captain, Michael Hays, drove our car around Texas Motor Speedway a total of 32 times during the session. After lunch, Nick Chapman drove our car for a total of 32 laps. This unofficially puts the team in 8th place for the day and 160 total laps. We will have to wait for the drivers' meeting in the morning for the official results.

Race Day 2 - Session 1

Great first session of Day 2, we got in 34 laps and our drivers were Raj Panesar and Nick Chapman. Eating lunch now, we will begin racing at 2:00 pm and later we have a parade in Roanoke. We're currently in 5th place.

Race Day 1

Sorry for the late post, it has been a crazy first day. The car passed scrutineering this morning and was officially accepted into the race. Aurora left the starting line at 2:30 and completed 33 laps in 3 hours without any pit stops, driver changes, or breakdowns. Nick Chapman, our pit crew chief, drove the entire time and did a great job. Tomorrow morning the judges will announce what place we are in based on today's driving. Also, go to WFAA to see interviews and video of Aurora.

Day 1 of Racing

The first day of racing went great. In the morning we finished scrutineering with the endurance test, and began racing by 2:30. We averaged a speed around 16 mph with our driver, Nick Chapman, to allow for us to receive a baseline of power usage data for the race. We also wanted to make sure enough energy was available in case of cloud coverage that is expected tomorrow, and later in the week. Unofficially, we finished in 5th place for the day in the classic division with 33 completed laps. We'll have to wait till tomorrow until the official results from the judges are released. Can't wait to begin racing tomorrow!!

Finished Day 1 of Scrutineering

Finished the first day of Scrutineering. CSRT was the first team to pass the Mechanical inspection! Saagar handled the breaking test very well, completing it on his second try. The only trouble we had today was with the Electrical inspection of the car, where a current was found in the frame of the car. After taking the car back to the high school, the short was found to be with the brake light switch and the problem was fixed. Tomorrow we finish scrutineering with an Endurance test, and then begin racing around 2:00. Finally, we get to race!

Scrutineering Day 1

Finally here at the hotel and just passed the slalom course. We've got all our drivers accepted and we're moving much faster than we expected. Can't wait til tomorrow when the race starts. Looks like it's going to be alot of fun!

The Motor is on

The motor has been mounted and the team is working on aligning the belt.  It's coming along.  We are also updating the website.  Should be live soon. 

Mounting the motor

We are finishing the motor mount.  Thanks to David Gill for getting it fabricated for us.

Putting on side panels

We are currently mounting some side panels for sponsor logos and to protect the electrical bay.

New Welder

I'd like to thank Greenscape Pump for their recent donation to the team.  Today we received a new welder.  The students are so excited.  It's fun to watch our students get so excited over equipment.  This will help the team tremendously.  Thanks!

Tomorrow's GAME PLAN - FIRST

GAME PLAN FOR TOMORROW:

Meet after school, add the last finishing structural changes

(After testing today, the robot was able to score the inner tube at the 9 foot level. But it was unstable and hit a few glitches...)

...and of course, this will be followed by testing.

And fixing, and testing, and testing, and you get the picture.

Stay tuned for more updates!

P.S. Did I mention our twitter? chs_engineering

First Basics, for those of you who are wondering

Okay, so many of you are probably wondering what FIRST is and what we are trying to do this year. I posted a few things on twitter, but since there's a word limit, there's only so much I can explain on there.

FIRST Robotics is a 6 week robotics competition. This year's challenge is to build a robot to score different shaped inner tubes. Another part of scoring is deploying a minibot that must climb an 8 foot pole.

Currently, the robot stands at 4 feet, 10 inches and reaches with a single arm to a maximum height of 9 feet. The arm is hooked up to belts and a fisher price gear box motor setup for greater torque. Two springs counterbalance the arm, so the center of gravity maintains stable.

The team is now in week 6/6 of the competition. (Because we missed a week for bad weather, time has become even more of an issue than usual.)

Right now, the robot is working, but it is a bit unstable, so the FIRST team is working tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, on until the job gets done (or, more likely, until February 22, the robot send off date- though they will meet consistently after that as well).

FIRST Robot Ship Date coming soon!

Our FIRST team is working frantically to finish the robot in time for...

ROBOT SHIP DATE

on February 22 at noon.

Carolyn Mason and the team are working constantly on this; wish us luck!

Official JETS update email example

So I'm signed up to get updates from the official JETS website (Junior Engineering Technical Society for those of you who are wondering) and this is one of the emails they send me. You can see more of what they do at www.jets.org!

(Oh, and we have a workday tomorrow - get excited!)

Twitter!

Hey, make sure to follow our twitter! We're at chs_engineering, and we WILL be updating it with jokes, updates, and anything else related to our team, solar cars, or engineering in general. Czech it out! (pun intended)

www.twitter.com/chs_engineering

We've been back (since X-Mas) and making progress!

We've been back from the Holiday Break for a month now, and despite all the ridiculous weather conditions Coppell has experienced in the past few weeks, we've made significant progress on the car!

Our two teams are still functioning, with the seniors working on fixing the old car and the juniors and underclassmen learning the mechanics and skills they need to design another car. We recently started welding again; it's pretty exciting! It's great to be back :)

Monday

Tomorrow's Monday, meaning that it's a workday. We're going to get more work done on the car-- it's going to be fun!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from CSRT!

We are meeting over the holidays to continue to work on our various tasks. As of right now we have divided into two groups; the senior members are working on Aurora, fixing certain aspects of the car, while the new members are learning about the mechanics of solar cars. Kaelan has taken charge of the underclassmen and is leading them through the work that the team has done in the past. If we can't learn from our mistakes, then we will just repeat them. We are trying to pass on our knowledge to the new members so that we can have a repertoire of experiences to draw from in the coming year and those that follow!

2011! :)