From Professor Vahid Motevalli, lead faculty advisor for the team:
 

Purdue EcoMakers Warm Greetings from Yuma, Arizona.

Congratulations to all the team members here in Yuma and elsewhere. Purdue team has officially completed On Road Safety Evaluation (ORSE). This allowed us to move to dynamic competition events. The car performed very nicely in the ORSE. It is only running on EV mode as our engine is no longer operational. This is disappointing as we were one of very few teams who had a truly functioning hybrid system. The Control team had to work very hard and continuously for hours to solve numerous problems to get us to this point.

We have also passed 0-60 mph acceleration and braking, before running out of charge.

We have passed Max Lateral Acceleration requirements as well.

I am currently at the Proving Ground and will be here at least until 3 am to monitor battery charging. We are scheduled to run Emission & Energy Consumption (E & EC) at 4 am. Three of our team members have volunteered to come to the DPG to run this event. Being in EV only mode, we will not be able to complete E & EC, but we hope to earn important partial points.

Sunday is the last day at the GM Desert Proving Grounds for the Purdue team and will be driving back to San Diego for the rest of the competition which will include a number of technical, business and communication presentations. Our vehicle will be shipped there and displayed for the national media and the public. Depending on the state of charge of the batteries, there may be an opportunity for test drive of our vehicle.

This has been a great team effort this week. Most of the 14 students here have spent 7 am to 10 pm days at the DPG and many hours back at the hotel. I also want to specially thank our GM mentor Dale Klein who has been with us every step of the process, but has also been an incredible resource to the students. He has used every opportunity to provide valuable advice and educate all of us on many finer points of the fascinating work that goes into engineering an modern automobile. I also want to thank Dr. Peter Meckl whose presence here has made it possible for us to manage the long hours and many challenges. Our team has accomplished more in one week here than at least a couple of months back at Purdue. Way to go EcoMakers!!!

It was truly rewarding to see the hard work of ALL of YOU, students currently on the team and those from previous semesters as well as our other faculty advisors; Dr. Shaver (joining us in San Diego), Dr. Oleg Wasynczuk (our EE expert), Dr. Henry Zhang (our transmission and drivetrain expert) and Dr. Dietz (our battery expert) pay off thus far.

Special thanks to Dean Bertoline for coming all the way to Yuma to support us. I also want to thank all the Department Heads for their support, particularly Dr. Bajaj (ME DH) for his generous support, and Dr. Burbank (interim Head of MET) for continuing MET support. We are all grateful for Dean Jamieson's continued support as well as Dean Depew who along with Dean Jamieson provided the original funding and commitment when we proposed this project in December of 2010.

Finally, the scene at the "Dynamic Pad" at the DPG where our car was tested very aggressively for the ORSE was truly remarkable and memorable as the sunset provided a great Gold shine on the car with the Black tarmac. We wish all of you could have witnessed it. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to take any pictures or video, however, I asked one of the GM employees to take a few pictures and I have attached them to mark this memorable milestone.

Hope to send you more good news. Tomorrow (it is already then), we will attempt to earn more points by performing as many dynamic events as possible before the Noon deadline.

All the best,

Vahid