Alexander Polyakov

This was an online job experience program that consisted of a 1 month long group case study and simultaneously a month-long course which taught a cohort of students about various engineering and economic aspects of creating a vehicle. The month-long case study required us to work in a group of 4 and collaboratively apply the things we learn thought the course to create a conceptual design of a new electrical vehicle, including setting requirements and evaluating the technical feasibility of the vehicle. For this case study we had to do various calculations to ensure that the car we designed would be both fast, reliable and feasible. Some examples of things we had to do was create our own battery system for the car therefore we had to calculate and research which cells to use, how many to use and which arrangement to put them in. We also had to calculate our batteries output and then calculate what speed the car could go at accounting for our aerodynamics, weight and other factors of the car. One of the things that I worked on was creating the design of the car and all the aerodynamic features. For this I had to calculate the downforce that our car could create as I had to ensure that the aerodynamic features on the car could give maximum downforce while keeping the vehicle slipstream. In the end our team had to present the design of the entire car and all its inner functionality and capabilities, after the presentation the 12 teams were judged on who created the best car in terms of the cars speed, design and functionality, and our team ended up getting 2nd place. This experience not only taught me various engineering concepts but also taught me how to work with a team collaboratively and effectively.

Here is a list of the engineering and economic aspects I learnt:

• Innovation and different approaches to achieve an ideal and innovative solution
• Forces on vehicle, dynamics and power requirements
• Internal Combustion engines and fundamentals of the related thermodynamic cycle
• Fundamentals of electrification of vehicles and batteries, including approaches for the design of a battery pack
• Fundamentals of sustainability, life cycle, and evaluation of the sustainability of a product
• Fundamentals of fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, including forces and moments, drag, lift, downforce and streamlining
• Learning about conventional, hybrid and fully electric powertrains
• Exploring concepts of intellectual property and engineering ethics
• Understanding the fundamentals of economics in engineering, learning how to cost a project
• Evaluating key risks to implementing said solutions and exploring mitigants to ensure robust recommendations