July 2020 Updates
CONQUERING THE ROAD ONE SOLAR CELL AT A TIME.
“The strength of the team is in each individual member. The strength of each member is the team”
MOVIE NIGHT FUN
Not being able to interact with the team in person has been an unfortunate circumstance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being able to connect with others and bond is critical when building relationships. Sunstang takes this seriously and believes in the importance of developing teamwork skills by not only building a relationship related to Sunstang work, but also building one outside of it. This is important because the team will better understand each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and interests which will help them work even better together.
Therefore, our Internal Affairs Lead Stephanie has been working diligently to come up with fun, interactive socials to allow the team to bond and get to know each other throughout the summer. We previously established a goal to have a minimum of one social per month with the team. This past month, the team got together for a movie night using the Google Chrome extension ‘Netflix Party’. Netflix Party allows all the users to have their screen synced with a chat box alongside it to have a conversation while the movie is playing. The movie of choice was Everest and quite a movie that was!
LOW-POWER UPDATES
Over the month of July, the Low-Power team has been working on various projects. Their main focus, however, has been the Battery Management System (BMS), which is a system that consists of sensors and micro-controllers to monitor the state of charge and state of health of the main battery pack, and Supplementary Control Unit, which consists of relays that allow the car to switch its power source from the supplementary car battery to the main battery pack.This system is extremely important for ensuring that the main pack is safe to use before the car is turned on.
This month our Low-Power Lead Kristina has been learning about temperature, current, gas, and voltage sensors and utilizing Decision Matrices in order to make the perfect component selection for Sunstang 2022’s BMS. Pictured below are LEDs indicating when the BMS sensors read over a specific value; the LED changes from green to red to indicate the operating area and the faulted area.
The team has also been utilizing the Altium Designer software to complete all schematics related to the BMS. This software is extremely easy to use and offers many resources which our team uses for learning shortcuts and to clarify any doubts they may have while working with the software. Altium Designer also allows our team members to share schematics easily, which means the team can build on each other’s work and complete schematics at a much faster pace without having to restart the process.
WHAT WE DO WEDNESDAYS
To take full advantage of our platforms in order to reach those interested in Sunstang, our Marketing Lead Daniela encouraged the leads to participate in weekly “takeovers” on the Sunstang Instagram page. The leads have been uploading stories that highlight who they are, what they do for Sunstang, what a typical day looks like when working on Sunstang tasks, and some of their hobbies/interests outside of the team. Many companies with a strong online platform use similar strategies to allow their audience to get to know their employees in an interactive manner, which served as the inspiration for our “What We Do Wednesdays”segment!