Electric Vehicle Assembly and Testing - Bright Spots

Adaptability and Resilience

 


About this project
Students in The EV Tech course are charged with an assembling a fully functional, road-worthy, build-it-yourself electric vehicle as a class project. The project is perfectly on the edge between that which the students are currently capable and that which is beyond their technical and physical ability. In order to bridge that divide, students must exist in a climate of ambiguity and shift their priorities during the project. They face their limitations and push past them, often by failing before they succeed. They take on varied roles and responsibilities, such as getting into the physical positions necessary to fasten certain nuts, bolt, screws and electrical connections that they heretofore are not able to physically complete. Another role is connecting the dozens of electrical connections only to find out that the circuit doesn't work, forcing them to go back over all their connections and persist to accomplish the difficult task of identifying their mistake.

The project culminates with vehicle testing at a local motorsports facility. During the testing, students are able to observe in real life what aspects of their work meet the performance standards and what do not. They also get to see the strengths and weaknesses of the equipment. For example, students noticed that EVs with less powerful battery packs are more durable and reliable, but slower and lose considerable amounts of power even when the batteries are still over 50% charged. They also observed that EVs with more powerful batteries sometimes experience component failure or component wear due to the increased power.

Project Testimonials "Trips like this will stick with the kids for a while and greatly enrich their experience with the auto tech program as we were able to learn a great deal about the cars that we would never have been able to discover spinning wrenches and driving them around the shop parking lot. My hope is that we can use the testing regimen we have initiated here to help them translate theory into real world experience with vehicle dynamics and analysis. The enthusiasm of the kids seeing the cars driving and also being able to experience the race track environment was invigorating and gives me hope that perhaps some of them will pursue careers in the automotive and motorsports world."
-John Lindsey (Auto Tech Booster Assn. President & Motorsports Veteran)

"The photography class I wanted was too full, so I ended up in the EV Tech class by chance. I didn't think I would like it, but it's become my favorite class. I like figuring out how to solve problems in the auto shop space on the cars we have there."

-Charm Blackwell (12th grade)

"I enjoyed working with the students to get the EV cars ready for testing at the performance track. Students were eager to learn how to make the cars safer and higher performing by doing pre-track inspections of the vehicles. The student engagement and enthusiasm towards the physical and technical aspects of the inspections was palpable and contagious."

-David Egolf (Auto Tech Booster Assn. Member & Fieldtrip Chaperone)

"I can't really explore my interest in cars in any of my other classes. And even though I didn't think I cared much about EVs versus regular cars, the EVs are more fun and faster than I thought they would be."

-Robert Kleber-Vicente (12th grade)