Week 2 (27th April week)

This week we met Mr Steven Chew again to update him about our progress, mainly the  straightforward yet tedious experiments found in the Arduino training kit.

He then brainstormed with us a few salient points namely:

1) Batteries / BMS
2) Solar Panels + MPPTs
3) Motor 2WD + Controller
4) Race Strategy
5) Voltage Measurement
6) LCD Display

We were instructed by Mr Steven Chew to appraise the existing possibilities and solutions to problems for all the points stated above.

For batteries, solar panels and motors, we covered on the different connection components that has been used for SunSpec3 which can be implemented for the current SunSpec4. We looked into the different current and voltage sensors that are suitable for each of the 3 mentioned components. Few of the components mentioned were the Amploc current sensor that was implemented in SunSpec3 and Avago voltage isolator IC chip.

For race strategy, it includes performing a route simulation to test the energy, speed and time of our car. The actual current and voltage utilized by our car must also be noted down.

Voltage measurement correlates with current measurement and this means that we ought to take in consideration of the speed, temperature and sensitive calibration of our car.

Finally, we were told that we can start to experiment with the different size of LCD displays for our car. We hope to embark with a 16x2 display, then later a 20x4 display.