PSR is ready to start!
With over 80 members this fall, PSR has a strong presence on campus and team productivity is at an all-time high! The designing of Lux is ongoing, and we are looking forward to finalizing our designs in the near future.
We’re excited to keep growing our team and help our members grow their skills!
What a great weekend this was!
Last weekend, PSR attended the Hands on Transportation event held by the Imagination station in West Lafayette, IN. Nearly 150 families came throughout the event, which was geared to promote and display unique vehicles!
PSR is proud to participate and engage with the community, and we are always thankful for these types of events. Promoting STEM education and being able to display the high level of engineering that students do at Purdue makes us even more proud of our achievements. This is a valuable mission of ours, displaying and engaging with our community!
We look forward to seeing the next generation of engineers grow from all these young fellows!
With a new year, comes new members!
PSR attended a few events at the begging of the semester to recruit for this years upcoming car! One of our main goals is to develop members and students by providing them with new experiences. We are therefore very excited to start this year, and can’t wait to see what will come from it!
And to all those who joined us this year, welcome to PSR!
As we start to work on our next vehicle, we look back at Apollo's exceptional feat! Within a year, PSR designed, built, and raced its first car in more than 10 years. Not only did it exceed expectations, it came 2nd at Shell Eco Marathon!
None of this would have been possible without the help of our great sponsors, especially Thermwood Corporation, Airtech Advanced Materials Group, and Composites Manufacturing & Simulation Center. The video below highlights the marvelous engineering of Purdue University's largest undergraduate student composite structure, as well as the incredible additive manufacturing capabilities of Thermwood Corporation.
We will be forever grateful for all those who helped and made this project possible!
Apollo has just attended its first outreach event!
This week, following our competition at the Shell Eco Marathon, PSR has attended the earth fair on campus. PSR brought out the car for people to take a seat in, ask questions, and learn how we contribute to making the world a better place.
PSR is committed to bringing green transporation to life, and we are also committed to showcasing such engineering feats! Thank you to all who came and asked questions, we where very happy to share about our work and goals!
What a way to finish the year!
In April of 2023, PSR went racing again for the first time in over 10 years! For the occasion, Shell followed our story and interviewed our president, Alexandre Chevalier, as we concluded on an incredible year of rebuild!
The team has come back to life after more than 10 years of activity, and we are more than proud to have overcome the many challenges of starting from scratch. With no knowledge transfer from the past generations, the team had to work hard to learn how to engineer, but also build, a fully solar powered car. Competing, and finishing 2nd at the competition, was beyond expectations. The team is extremely happy and proud of its work, and we can’t wait to get started again!
Make sure to check out our social media for our updates over summer, as we take a look back at this year and start designing for our future competitions!
PSR and Drone Club have partnered to bring to life this awesome video. We thought you’d like it too ;)
2 days ago we unveiled Apollo on stage. Now, we unveil Apollo on the road!
Designing and building a solar car is a very challenging task, one that involved countless hours of discussions, CAD, and simulation. Every system is built from the ground up, with numerous pages of maths and theroy to support the engineering. It is now important to ensure that the theory is put to practice, and that is why we have been driving the car on the road as much possible.
Collecting data, modifying systems, and ensuring safety are among the numerous benefits that road testing provides. We will be making modifications soon to reflect any of the road testing, and will be heading to the competition with a well tested car!
See you all at the 2023 Shell Eco Marathon!
Unique and extraordinary.
PSR has for the first time in 10 years unveiled a car! Apollo, as it is called, has been in the back of people’s minds for more than 2 years now. With about a year and a half of design, and only 3 months to manufacture everything, the team has put enormous amount of efforts to bring it to life. It is extraordinary what the team has been able to achieve, and the commitment that members have shown, because this project would never have been possible without all the help.
Unveiling jointly with the rest of the SAE teams, PSR is proud to announce that we are back racing. We will be on the Indianapolis Speedway for our competition in 2 weeks, so make sure to check us out as we compete.
Magical!
PSR has successfully made Apollo drive! After long hours and long nights, the team has been able to make Apollo drive. With all the electrical systems now assembled onto the chassis of the car, the drive train team was able to engage power to the motor.
Apollo went and drove down Purdue’s famous 3rd street, testing that all the systems were functionally properly. With little to no problems, we drove it back to our space in the BIDC, where we will return tomorrow to keep on testing and assembling the car.
We are getting closer and closer to the Shell Eco Marathon, and this was one of the most important milestones for the team! We can’t wait!
PSR’s mission of showcasing and promoting sustainable engineering means that we engage in outreach events all across the US!
This past week, PSR brought Celeritas, one of our legacy cars, to Brooks Elementary School. Students from all ages came to sit in the solar car, experiencing what the future of automotive might look like! With great engagement from all students, we are proud to see interset in the field of engineering.
By participating and hosting these outreach events, PSR promotes STEM to young students. We are proud to have had the opportunity to attend, and can’t wait to come to another event!
The solar sub-team has successfully encapsulated the cells!
With solar power being at the core of our electrical system, it is therefore very important for these to comply with our design. Encapsulation is a process by which raw cells are protected from the environment, as well as formed into more flexible shapes. This is important to allow the solar cells to be put on the very curved design of the solar car, designing with aerodynamics in mind.
With our process now complete, and trials successful, the solar team will be making the full arrays in the next weeks! Assembly on the car will happen soon, over spring break!
On Tuesday, the team came together to complete Purdue’s largest undergraduate layup.
PSR has been working sine October on the manufacturing of this part alone! Indeed, composite manufacturing is a very invovled process, requiring a lot of people and practice. As a result, the team has had to work with industry to create the mold, and had to simulatensouly perform testing and practice to nail the process before utlizing all these materials!
The process took 12 hours! with the layup starting at 14:00 and ending at 2:00 the following day. Nearly 15 people were actively involved, and the shell is now patiently curing in the BIDC paint booth.
We would like to thank our sponsors, Thermwood and Airtech, for helping us out in the process! The mold is as challenging of a part as the layup itself, and we are therefore very grateful for the support.
Apollo is now coming closer and closer to completion, and we can’t wait to drive it on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Shell Eco Marathon in April!
Apollo is almost ready to hit the road!
Last weekend, PSR members came together to bolt and assemble the suspension onto the chassis. The results are really awesome, and we can’t wait to add the rest of the electrical components to get Apollo driving!
After an intense first semester, PSR leaves for winter break with a chassis!
The semester took the team members through intense design, manufacturing, and structural testing before achieving the lightweight chassis below.
Carbon fiber has become a very valuable asset for a lot of industries, such as aerospace and automotive racing. With very strong and lightweight components, PSR is able to significantly reduce weight by using these materials. Furthermore, as it is designed and built by students, PSR Members get valuable experiences in manufacturing such complex structures.
Building off from automotive racing, Apollo’s chassis is therefore fully made of composite materials. This will allow the car to be more lightweight, and therefore more efficient during the race!
As of last month, Thermwood Corporation has been helping us print out the mold for Apollo!
The mold allows PSR to create a very aerodynamic vehicle, as we are able to create complex surface geometries to control and direct the flow of air over the vehicle. This mold will allow the team to build a car with a drag coefficient of less than 0.1, while most of industry leaders currently are above 0.2!
This was printed during CAMX - The Composites and Advanced Materials Expo, where Thermwood showed off their amazing manufacturing technology with LSAM - Large Scale Additive Manufacturing. This industry leading machine was able to seamlessly print out the mold that will be used in the 2023 Shell Eco Marathon for Apollo.
During the process, Airtech also decided to help us out, providing the team with the materials required to bring to life this enormous structure! With the C-250 CF carbon fiber reinforced PC material used, PSR will be able to display the capabilities of such material for composite manufacturing at large scales!
We would love to thank Thermwood for partnering with us and we're excited to have you along with us for our solar journey!
This past weekend, alumni Ryan Smith came and talked to the team about composite manufacturing for solar cars.
Ryan Smith has worked in the industry for multiple companies, gaining a lot of knowledge and expertise in the domain. Ryan Smith was part of PSR during the development of SPOT I and SPOT II, two vehicle designed to race at the American Solar Challenge.
Presenting to over 30 students, many members learned the theory of building a composite structure, both for aerodynamic properties, but also for structural components. Composite manufacturing is becoming more and more common in aerospace and automotive, as these materials are providing lightweighting solutions never before available!
With his time, Ryan also presented his career path, showing Purdue students the great breadth of possibilities that will come after college. This was very aspiring and we are really proud to have our alumni back and supporting the team again!
PSR is happy to announce a successful outreach event to the Imagination Station's "Hands On Transportation" event!
With over 1500 students and families attending, we couldn't be more excited to be a part of this event. While building a world class solar vehicle is one of our top priorities, being able to outreach at events like these is equally important for us.
As an organization, PSR is happy to give back to our local community by sharing our interest in STEM and sustainable transportation.
Thank you Tecumseh Junior High for having us and we can't wait to come back again!
Geenex Solar, a Solar energy company based in Charlotte, North Carolina, has joined our journey to engineer and build the next generation of Purdue Solar Racing’s car!
Becoming sponsors of the team, we have already joined Geenex at an event hosted by the Center for Energy Education to showcase how solar energy can be used in a variety of ways. With the event tailored to convincing landowners of investing in purchasing solar panels, and allowing solar farms to grow in the area, our goal was to display that solar is a growing industry that has many applications.
Our mission at PSR is to promote solar energy through the project, and that is why we really appreciate partnering with industries like Geenex and C4EE that provide us with opportunities to showcase our vehicles, while providing the community with more knowledge and insight into the rapidly growing world of sustainability.
Following a great recruitment campaign across the campus, PSR had it’s callout in WALC!
With nearly 100 new interested members, the team will be growing rapidly. During the callout, the leadership team presented all the different projects and sub-teams that new members can join, explaining how to contribute to building Apollo; PSR's 2023 car.
New members will be able to get started with the hands on experience starting this Saturday, where workshops have been planned to introduce them to the engineering world of solar racing!
If you are interested in joining the team, make sure to check out the “JOIN” tab at the top!
