Earlier this academic year, the University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) attended the Ontario College Motive Power Convention, hosted by Niagara College. UWAFT was there to network with industry professionals and inform vendors and sponsors about the team, as well as hear any recommendations offered by the experts.
Several EcoCAR 2 competition sponsors, including Snap-On, General Motors, and CrossChasm, attended the convention and hosted several clinics. During the Snap-On sessions, the team learned about new technologies for tracking certain tools in the toolbox. This was very useful and informative for the team, who were also able to socialize with the Snap-On representative and talk to him about the progress on their design.
UWAFT members were also able to attend the GM clinic, the focus of which was the Volt. The Volt, GM’s electric vehicle, is the product of some of the greatest engineering that UWAFT had ever seen. “The amount of engineering behind it is unbelievable,” says mechanical team lead Ben Gaffney. The team was able to look into the design of the Volt during the clinic and gain insights that could be transferred to their own Malibu design.
A UWAFT team member at their boothAnother workshop that the team enjoyed was with CrossChasm. CrossChasm is a company that focuses on hybrid electric vehicles; from them, the team was able to learn more about the company and the green technologies they are involved with.
Besides attending clinics, the team was able to talk to other attendees about their work and the EcoCAR 2 competition. The team discussed their plans for Year Three, showed people their Malibu and talked about their progress thus far. Some of the sponsors and vendors gave the team advice that might help them with some of the challenges they face. Everyone the UWAFT team met wished them the best of luck in the competition!
