I was part of a group which designed a stationary testing bed for the Northwestern Solar Car Team. The team wanted to be able to test their solar car's electrical systems during the winter months, when the snowy Chicago weather made driving the car outside difficult.

The goal of the project was to design and manufacture a device that could be used to test the acceleration characteristics of a solar car by providing a load on the driving wheel while the car was stationary.

The design team initially brainstormed different methods of applying a load to the rotating drive wheel of the vehicle and decided to use an alternator to convert the motion of the wheel into electricity, which was subsequently applied across an electrical load.

At the conclusion of the project, the device was assembled and tested on the solar car vehicle. It performed as intended for a short time but ultimately failed due to limitations on purchased hardware.