Abstract
Climate change is causing an accelerated need for sustainable energy infrastructure. With cars being the primary mode of transportation among the general public in addition to moving goods within the United States, there is a need for advancements in electric vehicle technology to limit the environmental impact made by consumers. Despite recent advancements, the electric vehicle market still faces barriers preventing the adoption rates needed to prevent further climate damage. My technical research approaches this problem by designing a gearbox for an electric racecar, through which I show that electric vehicles are more than purely environmental focused commuter cars, but also performance oriented machines, addressing public perception as a barrier to EV adoption. Then through my thesis, I investigate how current engineering education contributes to the lack of a skilled workforce and what methods can be used to rectify this issue. With this research, I show that to be able to make significant advancements, there is an underlying problem with how engineers are prepared for industry.
My technical research investigates how electric vehicles can be designed as performance oriented machines rather than environmentalist commuter cars. This is important because along with other constraints in EV adoption rates such as range and upfront cost, public perception of vehicles heavily influences whether or not consumers decide to buy them. To investigate this issue, my research centers around the design and manufacturing of a gear box to integrate hub motors on a student built Formula SAE electric racecar. This project was chosen because it involves the comprehensive engineering process of design collaboration, advanced manufacturing techniques, and testing. In this project, the gearbox was first designed for compatibility with existing FSAE structures, while complying with the extensive rules. Then, through design for manufacturing, the designs were followed through manufacturing where the product was manufactured using techniques including milling, turning, EDM, and more. This research found that tradeoffs must be made between optimized designs and those which are manufacturable within the constraints of a student team. Additionally, this project laid the foundation for future research and improvement including designs for metal 3d printed upright, motor cooling jackets, and torque vectoring.
My STS thesis investigates how engineering curriculum fails to prepare students for industry. This is an important problem because a growing capable engineering workforce is required to limit negative environmental impacts due to consumer transportation, and creating it starts with preparing future engineers to properly solve complex problems. To do this, I first introduce the SCOT framework which argues that the social groups who interact with and interpret a technology ultimately drive the development of it and to best understand how a technology developed, you must first identify the relevant social groups. Using this framework, I identify the three primary stakeholders affected by engineering curriculum: the students, educators, and industry. Then by reviewing their responses to various surveys regarding accreditation standards and curriculum structure, I analyze the perspective of each of these stakeholders and identify the need for a curriculum reform. In this analysis, I show that there is a unanimously perceived shortcoming in engineering curriculum which fails to prepare graduates to effectively apply the technical skills taught in school to real-world situations. Then, I argue that greater adoption of project-based learning programs and activities can help bridge this gap. I show that activities such as Formula SAE, internships/co-ops, and labs, are all uniquely effective in teaching professional skills in tandem with technical skills. And finally, I argue that not only are project-based learning programs effective in teaching these skills, they are practical for universities to implement at a large scale. Through methods such as industry partner collaboration and hybrid curriculum integration, I show that similar engineering programs have found methods of effectively managing the financial, personnel, and time constraints that come with curriculum reform.
Because the gearbox is only one of multiple parts of the comprehensive system required to fully integrate hub motors on an FSAE car, my technical research was successful in laying the foundation for designing the remaining systems. Specifically, the general constraints of the system were identified and the manufacturing process, arguably the most intense part of the project, was worked out, with areas of improvements identified. Additionally, the project laid the foundation for future research and improvement. With the technical research, the arguments from my STS thesis were supported as the gear-box design was based around a project-based learning team, FSAE, while incorporating the requirements and constraints from the engineering curriculum through the Capstone project requirements.
