Proposals

Abstract

For the past decade, the UW Formula Motorsports team have been designing and competing with electric cars at national and international competitions in the Formula SAE collegiate competition. The 2022-2023 competition season marks the second year of the team competing with a four-wheel-drive electric vehicle architecture, which introduced a host of new challenges and problems involving the electrical integration of the vehicle, primarily involving the new 550-volt powertrain and general integration of the package as a whole. The UW Formula team operates as a collection of 10 distinct technical sub-teams, and this proposal intends to alleviate the problems associated with our electronics and electrical powertrain sub-teams, which have been the biggest restrictive factor to our success in competition for many years. As such, equipping these sub-teams with the powertrain and necessary diagnostic equipment will better position the team as a whole to tackle the competition and build the most successful, safe, and competitive FSAE vehicle in the United States. Having the equipment listed on this proposal will help the electrical powertrain and electronics sub-teams with testing and development of their projects, as well as enable the team as a whole to gather data at a faster rate. Currently, transferring powertrain packages between cars ensures that there is a period of time where no driver training or data collection can occur, which can be minimized with two packages. Likewise, two powertrains create a safety net if something were to fail with one of the two packages.

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