Racing Battery Management System; Crude Capital: The Impact of Oil Money on European Football

My technical project pertains to the creation of a battery management system (BMS) for an electric race vehicle. Battery packs consist of lithium-based battery cells, often in series, with some form of casing and cooling system to preserve the units’ health. A BMS complements these components and acts as a master controller. If there are disparities in a module, the BMS balances voltage and state of charge (SoC) via cell balancing, which is the use of switching transistors and diodes to balance out measurements in a module. In our project—done by John Link, Silas Schroer, Gabriel Binning, and I—we developed a BMS tailored for the intense heat and velocity conditions of competitive racing.

Further, I wrote about oil money’s influence on European football to understand its origins and effects. I was influenced by my technical project, because I believe that advancements in renewable energy have caused a ripple effect, somehow extending to European football. And they have. As a result, I made a strange connection between the topics and composed two seemingly unrelated papers. But, I’m thankful for that connection, and I hope my social paper lays the foundation for future analysis on how to mitigate oil money’s adverse effects on football.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

Technical Advisor: Adam Barnes

STS Advisors: William Stafford and Peter Norton

Technical Team Members: Silas Schroer, Gabriel Binning, Asad Shamsiev