Alumni Spotlight: Andrew Karpin

Andrew with Lynn Gantt working on the engine test stand.

Andrew Karpin was an electrical subteam member of HEVT during Year 3 of EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. He is now an engine calibration engineer at Robert Bosch LLC and was hired through one of the EcoCAR sponsor socials. 

“Advanced vehicle technology competitions exposed me to the tools and processes of the auto industry, which has lead me to excel in my profession,” Andrew said. He is responsible for a wide variety of engine calibration components, but he primarily focuses on engine start calibration.

Andrew joined the team in the final year of the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge competition for his senior design project. “I discovered HEVT through Virginia Tech course request, and being a gear head, I naturally seemed interested in the project,” Andrew said.

Although there were some challenges and stressful moments throughout the year, the experience and skills he learned were well worth it. “My favorite moment on the team was when we won first place in EcoCAR in Washington D.C.,” Andrew said. “Who doesn’t like being on the winning team?”

“I think it’s great that HEVT is getting more and more students involved,” Andrew said. “If anyone wants to have a job in the auto industry, HEVT gives the necessary tools to excel.” He thinks very highly of the program, not only in the engineering aspect, but of the communication team as well. “I do like the fact that outreach and vehicle updates have improved over the last two years.”

Andrew just bought a house in the Michigan metro area and is making it very engineer friendly. “I’m currently outfitting my pole barn vehicle lift, and have several projects already waiting in the wings,” Andrew said. We wish him the very best in his automotive engineering career.

Andrew (3rd from the left) with other HEVT members.

Build Update 3.29.13

This past week we sent team members Tyler Erikson, Danny Keaton, Eli White and Chris Manning to Mississippi State University for the regional safety technical inspection. We were joined at inspection by teams from Mississippi State, Embry-Riddle, North Carolina State and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

We received credit for completing the majority of the organizer’s checklist for the inspection. Overall, we were successful and were complemented on various novel and innovative items on the car. Out of the fifteen schools in the competition we are alone of the first teams to close our contactors. However, the organizer’s inspection team did point out a lot of things we need to fix before competition in May.

We have a lot of work to get done before competition like integrating our half shafts and getting the engine to run. After we integrate all of these components we need to test and adjust the control code to make sure everything works. We’ll be working hard to complete all necessary tasks before our send-off event on May 1, 2013.

HEVT's Most Recent Grad heads to GM

Corey working with the battery pack from EcoCAR 1

Corey Robinson, HEVT’s most recent graduate, is now working at General Motors as a global lead design release engineer in the chassis electronics and controls group. Corey participated in both the EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge and the EcoCAR 2: Plugging In to the Future competitions. While with HEVT, he was a volunteer on the electrical subteam, and was one of the few electrical engineers on the team.

“I first got involved in Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions (AVTCs) after Lynn Gantt, one of the HEVT leaders from EcoCAR 1, told me about the program during our internships at GM,” Corey said. “He suggested that I get involved, so when I got back to school I began volunteering with the team.”

After he volunteered with the program, he decided to make it his senior design project for Virginia Tech. Corey was a team member when HEVT won first place in EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge. “It was really cool to see all the hard work and long hours pay off after we won,” Corey said. “I liked seeing all of the teams from around the country participating and working with one another.”

Corey (far right) with other EcoCAR 1 Year 3 members

Corey added, “A big part of the competition is learning from the mistakes the team made, those were some of the worst moments. When something destructive happened, the initial thought of ‘what do we do now’ was never good. It always ended with the team rallying together and fixing the problem.”

Corey acted as a mentor for the EcoCAR 2, Year 2 team during fall 2012. “His experience with building a car and participating in these kinds of competitions was very beneficial to the team,” said team leader Chris Manning. “We definitely miss him here, but know he’s doing great at GM.”

Corey (second from the left) at EcoCAR2 Year 1 competition

The AVTC program was very beneficial in preparing him for the real world and his current job. “By being exposed to many different environments and tasks while working with HEVT, I gained perspective for non-electrical thinking and problems,” Corey said. In addition to his time at HEVT Corey interned and did co-ops with General Motors for several summers before being hired.

Corey is living in Michigan now, and is adjusting to life after HEVT. In his spare time he wishes to start working on a power racing series with some other HEVT alumni at GM. 

Safety First!

Eric displaying some of our safety gloves when working with high voltage equipment

Working in a hands-on, real-world competition comes with some risk. To mitigate that risk, we at HEVT stress the importance of safety. There are many dangers in our lab, including things like power tools, high voltage batteries and the weight of the car. "Safety is important for the team members and the team's relationship with the school, Ware Lab, and EcoCAR 2 competition," said HEVT's safety officer and electrical subteam member, Eric Higgins. "It is extremely important for us to be safe due to the nature of the work we do."

We have established safety practices and trainings to ensure that team members know how to operate tools and equipment properly. We also use proper PPE (personal protective equipment) to keep the operator safe. This equipment includes safety glasses, gloves, face shields, high voltage gloves, high voltage tools and safety guards on the tools.

"We also have a stop work condition where a team member can tell anyone to stop what they are doing because it is unsafe," Eric said. "We haven't had to do that this year, and that is due mostly to the training team members have completed."

Team leader Eli wears PPE as he welds the ESS

Before students are able to work on the vehicle, they must pass a Ware Lab safety quiz. Team members working with our high voltage batteries, from A123, must take a high voltage training to become familiar with tools and potential hazards. Some of our other trainings include:

- CPR/AED training: team leaders and several members of the electrical subteam participated in the Red Cross CPR/AED training for certification. These precautions were taken to prepare for the worst kind of emergency.

- Vehicle Lift Training: teaches students safe operation of the HEVT vehicle lift.

- Machine Shop Training: teaches students proper and safe use of the Klages* Machine Shop in the Ware Lab.

- Welding Class and Certification: team members must pass a class that instructs them in proper welding techniques and safety before they are permitted into the welding shop or to weld in the Ware Lab.

- Truck and Trailer training: instructs team members in the proper operation of the Ware Lab truck and trailer for times when they need to transport the vehicle.

"Sometimes we laugh at how ridiculous someone looks with their safety glasses," Eric said, "but we know it's for a good reason and would prefer to look ridiculous than be unsafe!"

Alexander Keller at Freescale

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While members of HEVT traveled to Austin for Winter Workshop, one team member was going back to his old stompping grounds. Alexander Keller , a senior electrical engineer on the team, had a co-op at Freescale, a platinum level sponsor of the EcoCar2 competition, during the fall 2012 semester.

"I really enjoyed working at Freescale and living in Austin," said Alexander."I worked on the Linux Windowing system called Wayland and learned a lot."

Alexander (left) at Enchanted Rock

Some of the work Alexander did at Freescale included helping code the event handling for Wayland. An example  of event handling is when you click your mouse on the computer, there is an "event" that is triggered and Wayland has to be able to respond to the event. Alexander helped write the code that tells Wayland what to do with the event so the application will work correctly.

"I never knew what Wayland was, so it was really cool to learn about the software and work with it. I also learned that Freescale creates chips that go into Kindle e-readers, aviation info-tainment and Garmin GPS products."

Alexander not only learned a lot about Freescale but about Austin and Texas ways of life. He even purchased a genuine cowboy hat, which he learned is just called a hat in Texas. Alexander lived in downtown Austin where he became a huge tex-mex and BBQ fan.

"The food in Austin is awesome. My favorite restaurants were Chuy's, Torchee's Tacos and Rudy's Barbeque. Also the food trucks right across from Freescale's building were good too," Alexander commented.

In addition to his "hat" purchase Alexander went Skeet shooting. "I like Skeet shooting, but I'm not very good at it," Alexander said.

In Year 1 Alexander was also known as HEVT's Freescale guy. His work on our Freescale board, that will be integrated into the dashboard of our vehicle, is in great working condition. In addition, his presentation for the Year 1 Freescale sponsor award won first place.

We are definitely happy to have Alexander back on the team this semester! Comment below to welcome him back!

Our time at Year 2 Winter Workshop

Chris Manning, Kyle Caroncino and Dr. Doug Nelson

One day after classes started we traveled to Austin, TX for EcoCAR2 Year 2 Winter Workshop. While there it came into focus that there is only 15 more weeks until competition and that we are already halfway done with the competition. Pretty much symbolizing that we still have a lot of work to do until final competition in Yuma!

While in Austin a few of our engineers, faculty adviser, communication manager and business manager attended trainings and workshops. "One day we went to Murchison Middle School where we taught the local students about the EcoCAR2 competition," said communication manager Virginia Hyer. "We worked with some of the other universities to create a presentation that involved a jeopardy game and the students absolutely loved it."

Andrew Benoit, our business manager, had a competition presentation one of the first days in Austin. He had to pitch to EcoCAR2 judges, acting as a potential sponsor, for a vehicle part that we needed.

"Learning to prepare a pitch to a potential sponsor was a valuable opportunity as it really helps enhance my learning about the design as well as creating a valuable opportunity to sell a partnership with our team," said Andrew.   

The engineering team was in and out of dSpace, Freescale and waiver trainings while also being briefed on final competition logistics. Kyle Caroncino, our controls subteam leader, and Chris Manning our controls GRA, gave a presentation on the controls modeling and simulation progress thus far for Year 2. They highlighted some of our successes like being software in-the-loop testing capable and getting the control code validated to work on the vehicle!

"Presentations for the judged event helped us as a team to demonstrate our knowledge of the modeling and simulation work that we have been performing throughout Year 2,” said Chris. “It is always really helpful when we get feedback from the judges after the presentation and when the scorecards get released."

Now of course it wasn't all business in Austin. After our trainings were done for the day we were able to explore the city and participate in other activities during our stay.

On our first night in Austin we went to Abel’s on the Lake for Winter Workshop welcome Night. The lake provided a beautiful view of Austin and captured the local cuisine. "I could have eaten the whole bowl of Guacamole," said our controls subteam leader Kyle. The rest of the menu included fish tacos, homemade mac n' cheese and barbecue.

Five Generations of HEVT Leaders

We headed to 6th street as a team during our second night. The restaurant of choice was called Chupacabra, which our waitress told us meant a mythical creature that is half vampire half goat. After dinner a few of the team members walked around Austin and even got to go into the Austin capital building. "Going to Chupacabra and the capital building gave me a good local feel of Austin," said team leader Eli White.

Night three was the sponsor social where we met new competition sponsor New Eagle, voted on MathWorks new shirt and most importantly restocked on sponsor swag. This provided another opportunity for us to connect with other teams, sponsors and some HEVT alumni. We even got to snap a picture with five generations of HEVT team leaders. Although he wasn't in time for the team leader picture, Jon King (2011-2012 team leader), drove up from San Antonio to visit with us.

Eli and Taylor taking a tour of the Capital Building

In our final night in Austin we went to Maggie Mae's rooftop bar for the end of winter workshop ceremony. The team enjoyed the great food and drinks along with the 80's cover band. 2009-2010 HEVT team leader and EcoCAR2 organizer Patrick Walsh got up on stage and jammed out on the guitar.

After Maggie Mae's the team explored the rest of 6th street and then headed back to the hotel to get up early for a trip to the Circuit of the Americas. COTA is the first F1 racetrack in the US and is a brand new facility. We got a tour of the track and learned some of the cool things about the facility. "Visiting a brand new, one-of-a-kind facility is a pretty neat experience," said Eli. “I hope I can eventually make it to a race.”

We had a wonderful time at Winter Workshop and would like to thank Freescale and dSpace for hosting us!

Build Update (3.1.13)

Randall Morcom and Martin Mock in front of dSPACE headquarters.

This week we focused on the controls system of the vehicle. The controls subteam has been developing the testing structure for the vehicle model and control code. This came to a great success thanks to dSPACE, Inc. Two of our engineers to travel to Wixom, MI for a two-day training course on AutomationDesk. This training allowed the team to automate tests on the vehicle rather than manually testing all of the components. The team has successfully finished testing the EV mode components for faults and is moving toward testing other components of the car such as the brake pedal and engine among other components. Also, we’re currently in the process of switching from Software-in-the-Loop testing to Hardware-in-the-Loop testing. Though we have a long road ahead, the team is extremely proud of its accomplishments this past week! Send us words of encouragement or advice in the comments below, or email us at hevtoutreach@vt.edu.