First Days of Internship

Hey y'all,

I'm on the heels of my first day of the Baja SAE internship with the team at ASU Polytechnic. So far, it has mostly been learning how to work the different machines, in preparation for when we can start to make proprietary parts for the car. The four other interns and I have been instructed in how to use the CNC machines, lathes, and manuals. In the future, we will learn to use the CAD program SolidWorks to begin modelling more complex structures on the computer.

The first day, I was humbled when it took me half an hour to screw the engine on to one of the test cars. In my defense, the washer I was given was the wrong size for the bolt, but it still took me an exorbitant amount of time to realize my error. My fingertips were raw and bleeding after trying to apply torque in hard-to-reach places. I also got to take the side panels off the test car to replace with newer ones, which proved much simpler than my previous task.

Most recently, I was present at the testing of the eCVT to be used on this year's car. Since I personally drive a Subaru Impreza 2015 that uses commercial eCVT technology in the transmission, I had an intuitive sense of how the car was supposed to handle. The team in charge of the gearbox and transmission are using Arduino microcontrollers to dynamically change the gear ratio between the primary and secondary sheaves, by using data reported from a Hall Effect sensor measuring engine RPM. This type of transmission is unique to the ASU Baja team and, in my opinion, the coolest aspect of the car.

There is plenty of work to be done to meet the March 30 assembly deadline. According to what I've heard, the primary obstacle to road-testing the car is the acquisition of the shock absorbers, which are one of the few parts being manufactured at a 3rd party facility. In fact, most of the parts for the car are made in-house with the equipment available to students at the ASU Polytechnic campus, which supposedly outshines other Polytechnic institutes for its plethora of fabrication tools.

Our next big event is the Open House on February 17, wherein middle and high school students and interested parties come to examine the car. The session is designed to be chiefly informative, and includes an event where young kids are taught how to make a rubber-band powered cardboard vehicle. However, many potential sponsors attend the outing, so all club members have to be at the top of their game in explaining the inner workings of the car and selling while they should donate to the cause. As an intern, my presence at the event will probably be peripheral, but the club president, Jason, made clear that this was an all-hands-on-deck type of event.

My busiest days will probably be ahead of me, so I will update this blog weekly with all the new stuff I am learning and getting involved in.

Until next time,
Max