Recruitment

Hey Everyone!
This is my first time posting on the blog, so allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is John Fernando; I have been on the Solar Team for almost exactly two years now, and have taken over Scott's position as Mechanical Engineering Manager on the team since he left for his internship in Switzerland as of July 2010. I look forward to posting updates on the weekly activities of the team as we get our car race-ready once again for the next solar race!
Today (September 23rd), we had our first of two Fall recruitment sessions in our attempts to fill the voids that will be left behind by many of our soon-to-be graduated senior members. There was an impressive turnout to the event, and equally impressive enthusiasm from those present. I think it would be fair to chalk up this evident enthusiasm at least somewhat to our electrical engineering manager's recruitment speech, which contained everything from descriptions of solar cell encapsulation methods to a discussion of our motor/motor controller, and even a relevantly altered John F. Kennedy quote (... three guesses which one). Hopefully our second meeting will be just as successful as the one today.
On a more serious note, we found out yesterday that the Dunlop Solarmax D850 tires that we have been using for some time on our cars will not be permitted for use in WSC 2011. This adds a couple more things to our "to-do" list, namely research into new tires, and the design of rims to accommodate the selected tires.
I will try my best to keep you guys up-to-date on any progress of the mechanical team... And remember, "ask not what your solar car team can do for you--ask what you can do for your solar car team", as Tim said - a mentality I'm glad our entire team possesses.
Talk to you soon!
John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager