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Why an Electric Skateboard?
Why an Electric Skateboard?
For the entirety of my freshman year, UCLA was online and all buildings were closed to the public. I had no access to the abundance of tools and equipment UCLA has to offer. This sucked considering I wanted real hands-on experience to prepare me for my upcoming college years.
Since I lived only an hour away (traffic permitting), I would occasionally drive up to scope out campus. After my first few visits, I quickly caught on to the most daunting aspect of being a UCLA student... THE HILLS! Built in a valley, getting around UCLA almost guarantees a change in elevation. I realized this would make getting from class to class my upcoming years extremely difficult and tiring. As a prospective mechanical engineer, I took it upon myself to come up with a fun and creative solution for easy movement around campus.
The project
The project
I took on this project to improve my skills in designing and assembling electromechanical systems. Some
I researched and purchased all the components from separate vendors and integrated them myself.
I designed and spot-welded the 8S4P battery pack using individual Lithium Ion cells and nickel strip
I soldered matching connectors onto the battery, ESC, and brushless motor.
I attached to leads to each pack of parallel battery cells and wired them back to a Battery Management System (BMS) to ensure all the cells were charged at an equal rate (aka balance charging).
I programmed the VESC to work with my specific remote and applied a custom acceleration curve
I created custom motor mounts to fit the shape of my board's specific trucks
I bent and riveted the aluminum housing using common hand tools
Overall this project offered me a great number of opportunities to grow as an engineer and is the one I am most proud of.
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