Illini Electric Motorsports — Drivetrain
Most of my 2 years on the team have been spent on the drivetrain and suspension subsystems, from sizing planetary gear train components through leading the current corner-assembly and brake system redesign.
Leading development of the car's corner assembly and brake system for the current competition season, with the goal of reducing unsprung mass and increasing overall vehicle efficiency.
- Managing a team of 9 project leads and 20+ members across the drivetrain sub-team.
- Making administrative and technical direction decisions for the car and team alongside 10 other team leads.
Gear Design
- Own design of the 2026–27 gears package, running lap-time simulations to trade motor, inverter, and gear configurations for the highest system efficiency and lowest mass.
Carrier Project
- Designed the carriers for preloading the bearing stackup and mounting planet gears in a new ring-gear-output 1.5-stage planetary gearbox.
- Used hand calculations to derive gearbox component loads from tire contact patch loads, sizing and validating parts within the assembly.
- Performed static structural FEA (Ansys) to validate the integrity of the carrier-upright assembly and confirm sufficient stiffness for proper gear performance — checking carrier stress, gear tooth loading, and directional deformation under load.
Sensor Mount Design
Designed sheet-metal sensor mounts to increase stiffness and accessibility for the team's data collection efforts, supporting the car's instrumentation package.
Manufacturing
Manufactured parts for the car using wet layup, milling, lathing, waterjetting, and welding — trained in-house on manual mill, lathe, TIG welding, and waterjet to support the team's build efforts.
Planet Pin Sizing
Performed structural stress analysis on the planetary gear train to appropriately size gear pins for strength requirements, resulting in a ~20% mass reduction.
