May 18, 2012
- Engineering Explorations at University of Waterloo
- Public School Students ‘Eat Up’ EcoCAR 2 Presentation by UWAFT
- IT Infrastructure: The Workhorses of the Alternative Fuels Team
- UWAFT Partners with GM for Earth Week Presentations
- University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team Introduction
- MathWorks Makes Designing a Car Easy!
- Building a better battery pack with A123, CD-Adapco and Dana-Long Manufacturing
- UWAFT’s Powertrain Design Powered by FleetCarma
- UWAFT Collaborates with FleetCarma
- UWAFT’s Outreach Team Examines Consumer Attitudes and Behaviours Related to AFVs in Waterloo Region
Design Strategy
“Consider everything“
Start the design process by sitting down with a sheet of paper and brainstorming every element of the design: safety, function, interface, requirements, safety, purpose, life time, safety, etc…safety. It is very important to know exactly how the system is supposed to work and everything about the particular system before you start designing. From here, wait a couple days and think about possible issues which could arise and add to the list. Now you are able to define design constraints and come up with “design criteria.” These criteria must match up to benefit the team. In particular, for EcoCAR 2, one of the biggest challenges is reducing the weight of the vehicle (to improve vehicle efficiency) while maintaining the safety and trying to reduce the cost of designed parts.
Trevor Sabiston, Mechanical Team member
