The Exosuit project is off to an uplifting start as parts for the initial prototype are on their way for delivery. Here’s a brief timeline of what has been accomplished behind the scenes so far: The Exosuit project concept became finalized during the summer at a brainstorming session among project leads. Weeks 0, 1, and 2 were busy as UROP …
Fuel Cell Battery I
Our project is fuel cell battery. The blog will report the process of our project, some fascinating details and the achievement of the project.
Performance Mapping Completed!
This week we accomplished a major milestone for this quarter by completing performance mapping associated with the engine/generator test bed. Running engine while varying the loads between 0-40 kW at increments of 10 kW, we recorded the emissions data for NOx and CO, estimated the flow rate of the natural gas entering the system, and calculated the engine efficiency. In …
Anemometer on Engineering Tower’s Rooftop
On March 4th, our team took the next step toward gathering the necessary data to start drawing conclusions regarding the specifications and feasibility of our planned data center. Recently, we purchased, received, and assembled an anemometer, a common instrument used in weather stations. The device will collect wind speed data from a perch on top of UCI’s Engineering Tower. This …
Up and Running
Racecar Zeta Electric is running. By Lewis Munshi, Racecar Zeta
T-Tail
We’ve been working through the weekend to assemble our platform to a flight-ready condition. The first item of completion is the T-Tail. We started by positioning the internal structural components and cementing them into place along several carbon-fiber rods. This was followed by installation of the elevator/rudder servos and the routing of internal wires. Finally, we finished the tail with …
Spring is in the Air
Its been a while since our last blog but to recap we won the Deans Choice Award. There were over 40 MAE projects at Winter Design Review and we were one of few to receive the award. Since then we have started to build a whole new VTOL platform. With an addition of about 10 new mechanical engineer members, we …
Repeated Blows to the Head
Over the weekend new accelerometers were installed into the ATD. With these new accelerometers came a simpler DAS program. The program has multi-modal, with the most important being the “real time” and “collect” modes. In “real time” mode, the program operates like an oscilloscope, so we can verify the functionality of the accelerometers by applying impacts to the ATD head. …
CubeSAT Modeling
Using software such as COMSOL and Satellite Tool Kit (STK), we are able to model the UCI-CubeSAT to obtain theoretical data. By comparing theoretical data to experimental data, it is ideal to achieve results with less than 3% error. The ultimate goal is to model the spacecraft in space environment conditions to optimize the design of the CubeSAT. Currently, the …
What’s the DAS?
Now that the ATD has arrived, we have a lot of work ahead of us. This week was focused on setting up the DAS with the ATD for our tests, particularly with wiring. Our DAS is a National Instrument 9205 NI-DAQmx device. First, we set up a power source for the DAS. Then, we soldered the wires to connect our …