Approximately four months ago, I took the leap of faith and decided on helping my team in its bid to enter the North American Solar Challenge 2008. During final exams and in the two months after finals, I spent 60-70 hours each week working on the project, including weekends, nights, and even some all-nighters. We went to Cresson, TX on Thursday despite receiving the news that we were too late to have our car undergo scrutineering and that we cannot enter the event to show our car and to try to make good on our promise to give the organizer a “Texas-style dinner.” Now that I am back at home, I would like to take the opportunity to address some questions that some of you might have:

What happened? In a team consisting mostly of electrical engineers, mechanical and aerospace engineers are quite scarce. This caused a significant amount of lag in the building of the suspension. Furthermore, mechanical issues required us to machine more parts, and that could not be done without the use of our big milling machine in PRC (Pickle Research Campus). Nevertheless, if it were not for a new member that came out of nowhere (a Physics Ph. D student), this car would still not be driveable.

What were your contributions during the summer? While I consider myself as someone who implemented someone’s design and a troubleshooter, I was primarily responsible for the team’s logistics, which are “those little things” that are necessary for ensuring that everybody is taken care of and that we can actually go on the trip and return. If you want a comprehensive list of the things I did, I:

• Acted as an intermediary in the signing of the participation agreement between the event officials and UT’s business agreements department. This took four months and endless emails to straighten out.
• Obtained general liability and auto insurance for the event.
• Obtained decals for the trailer and team uniforms for the personnel. The biggest roadblock was that UT’s trademark and licensing department refused to allow corporate logos and the UT trademarks appearing side-by-side.
• Received my amateur radio operating license, as well as first aid and CPR certification.
• Gained familiarity with LabVIEW’s real-time/FPGA and PDA additions
• Performed some final assembly procedures

During the event, what did you notice? I saw some great ideas for how to make our car more water-resistant and a car with an absolutely brilliant body. More importantly, I noticed the amazing amount of help the teams give each other in resolving issues. It was exactly what I wanted to see: Even as we are all competitors, we are all ultimately friends in pursuit of one goal.

What frustrated you most? Dealing with trademark and licensing brought out the bureaucracy’s absurdity and took the Texas fight out of me. While we have some corporate supporters, we also received a significant amount of support from the various departments in UT. Since trademark and licensing refused to make an exception in the name of PR, I was forced to remove anything having to do with UT and give all the recognition to our corporate supporters.

As much as I wanted to recognize all our supporters and pay our dues to them, I removed the UT entities from the layouts, as seen above, and resigned myself to let the bureaucracy shoot themselves in the foot. That is, UT will not be recognized and I am able to face any music with confidence. Of course, my teammates and I had some other funny (and/or immature) suggestions:

• Replace orange with maroon and call ourselves “t.u.”
• Call ourselves United Technicians
• Replace all the UT logos with an image placeholder you’d see when your browser can’t find an image
• [Implemented] Replace the Longhorn on Samsung Solorean’s antennas with a Jack ball.

This frustrated me most because I considered the changes a waste of time – for every minute I had to make revisions, I was unable to work on the electrical system.

This is what you could overlook if you are pressed for time.

Why did you do this even though you know that you have a low chance of success? Besides practicing what I preached (which is not being a fair-weather fan), there are several reasons I signed on:

1. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There are not many people who can say that they took part in building a solar car.
2. I have been with this team since they started considering building the next car, and I would like to see the project all the way to its end.
3. I felt that if companies believed enough in us to give us money or services, then I should place my confidence in the team as well.

Despite not reaching the ultimate prize even after having paid quite the price (in terms of money and health), I hope you are convinced that I received a significant amount of work experience despite not being paid.

A view of the cRIO box

What happens next? There is a great deal of unfinished business on the team, and I have every intention of finishing them in a timely fashion. Quitting the team is out of the question – the team is in a better state than when I found it, and there are still improvements ahead. I am now convinced that the solar car class is indeed a great recruiting tool, and it is being cross-listed across the aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering departments.

The car fired up for the first time Wednesday, and I was able to drive it in the Pickle Research Campus parking lot. This experience in itself made this entire journey worthwhile. As I sit here, I have no regrets over my decision. If there are any questions, please write it in the comments section, and I will address it in another blog entry. But as long as we have the money, as long as we have the people, and as long as we have an event, we will keep on trying. To my friends: Thank you all for your support in my endeavor.  To my teammates: Thank you for your time, effort, and patience while you worked with me.  To our corporate sponsors: Thank you for giving us the resources necessary to pursue our passions.  Finally, to Professor Hallock: Thank you for your guidance and (seemingly) infinite patience even as I dropped the ball during the three years of this journey.