2024-08-26 C Suite & Div. Leads Meeting with Sid

Overall tips:

• Use the method that helps you keep your life organized for LHR

Timeline tips:

• Use an iterative process

• You can use visual aids

  • as an intro, start with draw.io

Budget Review

Electrical Overall Questions:

• Motor & Motor Controller - do we need to have two (one for each car)? Will only having one set for both cars set us back on time?

  • Estimates on how fast they can bring motor up and have it be drivable and reliable are off

  • Fundamentally the motor and motor controller are the same as Lonestar, but it took till the end of comp to get it to work on Daybreak

  • Powering the LV side is what is causing the setback

  • To ind. verify motor and controller, it will take 1.5-2 months (conservative)

    • this includes rewriting code

    • testing motor controller config., etc

• Array:

  • needs to be ordered two years in advance, what payments look like are still unclear, whether we pay upfront or later/in installments

Budget Questions:

• If it is a matter of choosing between array and the new motor, we should choose array

• It costs about $100,000 to $120,000 to build a solar vehicle (about $60,000 a year) - add about 15k for Daybreak upkeep

  • It is smarter to frontload your design year and fight for it

  • We don’t know how much it will cost to restore daybreak

  • Other teams budgets range from 65-80K

  • 60k to 75k is a good place to be in, less contention when discussing the budget. Above that, prepare for backlash

  • The other teams have set precedent for every team being allowed to have two running vehicles at the same time

  • They won’t cut us on this big ticket stuff

• Arguments to make:

  • For array, we need an array. The other teams do not have much knowledge about an array, and trust us that we are not trying to screw you over

• They are really going to cut us on:

  • Random shit

  • Comp

    • Reference Sid’s budget for comp

    • Bringing fewer people

Budget Procedures:

• Arguments to make

  • For array, we need an array. The other teams do not have much knowledge about an array, and trust us that we are not trying to screw you over

• How to approach the meeting

  • How Sid did it: He went to the meeting with an airpod in his ear while a select number of leads/other knowledgeable people were in another room listening in and messaging comments

  • Only TC and Chief engineer are allowed to speak

  • Do not be disrespectful

  • There will be a lot of bs arguments brought up

Closing Thoughts

• Having a timeline is super helpful for making a budget

• You will have to spend the next couple of days crunching this out - we are really behind

  • make a basic high level timeline, and using domain knowledge and historical data to make a budget

• Try to ask to push it back. You need to at least try. If they don’t push it back they don’t, but at least you tried. The reason they pushed it back was because it worked better for them