Smart Medical Devices Lab (SMDL)

April 16, 2023

the EV Grand Prix — an electric go-kart race

UW Bothell’s Electric Motorsport Club, which is advised by Dr. Yoon was founded by Belknap in autumn quarter 2022. After several months of hard work, student engineers Jordan Belknap, Samantha Brown, Giuliano Bussadori and Adrian Corona were able to participate in the EV Grand Prix — a competitive, electric go-kart race hosted for collegiate teams by Purdue University from April 13 through 15.

There were 16 teams total, with only two from the west coast, the University of Portland and ourselves! Except for us, all of the other teams used lithium-ion batteries, which are more powerful and last longer. Approximately, the cutting edge batteries enable a kart to make 80-100 laps, but our lead-acid battery (4 of 12V) weighs a lot (10 times?) and has much less power. Due to a delivery issue, we received our lithium-ion too late but our students opted to compete nonetheless.

The team placed placed second out of 16 in the design report as well as in the qualifying evaluation but we were unable to complete the required 50 laps in the final race (completed only 17 laps after the batteries were extremely low). They proudly placed 10th out of 16 in that final race. Congratulations, the team!!
BTW, there was a fire. One lithium-ion battery exploded and it took a long time to put it out. We heard that the operator typed in an incorrect input (power limit?), causing the battery overcharging.