Battery Box Mandate S2021

Midnight Sun’s Battery Box Team is in charge of giving the car power to move. Our battery pack is essential for two functions:

1. Store energy collected from solar cells

2. Provide supplemental power for our vehicle, MSXIV, on days with minimal sunlight

We assemble hundreds of lithium-ion battery cells into a battery pack that provides the necessary voltage and current for our motors to power MSXIV! 

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Above: Photo of battery modules assembled during Fall 2020.

Member Responsibilities

Depending on whether you’re onsite (in the bay) or offsite (remote), you will gain exposure to different elements.

For onsite members, you’ll gain exposure to:

• Battery module engineering and manufacturing including but not limited to:

  • Manufacturing techniques

  • Adhesives

  • Spot welding

  • Bolted connections

  • High voltage safety

  • Battery testing strategies

  • 3D printing

• Attending weekly team check-ins and general meetings over the web (mandatory)

For offsite members, you’ll gain exposure to:

• Design and analysis of battery pack components including but not limited to:

  • Research and design for battery testing and manufacturing

  • 3D printed mounts

  • High-current electrical connections

  • Data processing for battery tests (using python)

  • Solidworks design for battery pack components

• Exposure to the supplier-interfacing process 

• Attend weekly team check-ins and general meetings over the web (mandatory)

Required Skills

You are:

• A student passionate about design (interest in cars and batteries is a bonus)

• A hard worker, with the ability to complete tasks with minimal supervision (but we’re always here to help)

• A quick problem solver who isn't afraid to think outside the box

• Willing to learn new skills and improve your existing skills

• Strong time management skills for daily tasks and able to work on multiple projects simultaneously 

Good to Have/ What You’ll Learn

We don't expect members to have anything other than the above skills, however, the following are nice to have:

• Basic understanding of Design for Manufacture (DFM) and Design for Assembly methodologies (DFA) (combined, they’re commonly referred to as DFMA)

• Someone with exposure to a CAD package (SolidWorks preferred)

• Knowledge of solid mechanics (stress analysis, failure methods)

• Exposure to rapid prototyping (3D printing)

• Basic battery building knowledge (e.g. series and parallel, cell module and pack levels)

• Exposure to technical drawing creation

Communication

Open (This is from before university but I haven’t changed much)	Battery Box Lead: Micah Black When: Onsite some weekends and weekday evenings, remote communication otherwise over Slack
	Battery Box Project Manager: Owen Li When: Anytime remote!

Where to go from this page

To get you accustomed to navigating our massive and often confusing Confluence, on the left sidebar, please head to the pre-recorded recordings:

Mechanical space > MSXIV > Electrical Integration > Battery System > Zoom Meeting Recordings

You should skim through these videos. They might be A LOT to take in at first and you probably won’t understand some of the things that Micah talks about. DON’T WORRY! As you spend more time working on tasks you’ll remember some of what you heard in these videos and it’ll make a lot more sense. In the future its really useful to re-watch these videos when working on tasks as it can help you better understand how your task fits into the bigger picture!

After, check out the Intro Project!

And then, schedule a 1-1 with Owen and Micah so we can get to know you and learn about your goals with the team :)

PS: There are general mechanical seminars about all sorts of interesting things (Drawings, CAD, Composites, Materials Testing). They are great to check out to learn more about the car and engineering skills. More details to come in the check-ins!

Estimated time commitment for onboarding