Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Kiwanis Presentation

From left to right:  Todd, Alexis, Sal, Zack, Josh, Joey, Stephen, Chris

Early Tuesday morning, the EV team made a presentation to the Topsail Island Kiwanis club.  We met at 7:00am at the Smokehouse in Holly Ridge for their weekly meeting.  Breakfast was served and we had a 20 minute presentation with a question and answer session.  There was plenty of interest from the 60 members present as they asked the team about the vehicles and the future of electric transportation.  Thanks to the students who attended, who got up very early on a lazy summer day to help promote the program.

Monday, July 26, 2010

New motor install in MR2

Today we installed the new Warp 9 motor into the MR2.  The ADC 9 motor we removed needs to have the commutator surfaced and new brushes. We will refurbish that 6 year old motor as a side project this fall.
   The install seemed to be going well until we realized the Warp9 has a different bolt pattern on the auxiliary shaft end than is on the ADC 9.  We also found that dimensionally, the Warp is a slightly larger motor overall as well.  We ended up having to make some modifications to one of the motor mounts in order to make the motor fit.  The whole process took almost 6 hours, but we had to have the MR2 ready for a presentation at the Surf City Kiwanis meeting tomorrow.
   Thanks to the following students who showed up at 8am to work.  Fouty, Todd, Alexis, Sal, Stephen,  Joey, Tony and Kevin.  It was a long and challenging day, but it was worth it in the end. The install was also a very good troubleshooting exercise.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Classy Chassis car show at Poplar Grove

We took the opportunity to show the truck at the Classy Chassis car show at Poplar Grove today.  The car is out of order right now awaiting a new motor, so we just showed the truck.  There were almost 200 cars there, mostly classic pre-1980 cars, so the attendance and exposure were great.  It was hot and muggy, but still great to get out and allow the students to display the truck and gain experience in showing the public our program.
  Thanks to Sean, Stephen, Tony, Kevin, Marissa and Zach for showing up and helping to promote our program.

p.s That red 1961 Bug belongs to Mr Garrett.  We should convert it to EV!