VUB Racing: Zephyr’s Season Highlights & Eco Innovations

VUB Racing: Season recap & pedal box

VUB Racing is the Formula Student team from Brussels. We uniquely focus on building every part of our car out of recyclable materials be it flax fibers, recyclable plastics and various other eco-friendly materials. This year we’ve competed with Zephyr, our 2024 electric vehicle, at Formula Student Netherlands.

Here’s a wrap-up of our experience:

• We achieved our highest FSN score yet.
• We made significant gains in Engineering Design and the Business Plan.
• Zephyr’s design was confirmed by officials.

This was our third time participating, and we are getting closer to competing with the top teams. The 2024 edition sharpened our focus on the Business Plan and Engineering Design, enhancing our skills in static events. Let’s talk about some of the designs we’ve now gotten successfully scrutineered by the competition:

The Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor (APPS) quietly ensures that when you press the gas pedal, the engine responds with the right blend of power and control. The APPS consists of 3 parts. 2 sensors and 1 analog to CAN PCB.

The Sensor PCB

At the heart of this system lies the Sensor PCB—a compact circuit board discreetly positioned near your accelerator pedal.

As mentioned, we need to use 2 sensors, the reason for this redundancy is reliability. If one of the sensors fails, the other can take over.

The Signal Conversion PCB

Now that we have a noise prone analog signal, we must digitalize it to transport it through the car. Enter the Signal Conversion PCB. This board consists of a multitude of connectors for the two sensor PCBs mentioned hereabove and additionally both brake sensors.

Mechanical integration

Often electronics is used in a larger project therefore it is important to think about the integration. The sensor PCBs need to be installed so that the rotary potentiometer is aligned with the axis of the pedals. We therefore need to center the potentiometers in regards of the mounting holes. We split the sensor from the signal conversion PCB so that we can easily mount the PCBs in the pedal box and so that we only need one microcontroller.

So, next time you accelerate, remember the unsung hero, the APPS, working behind the scenes. They orchestrate a harmonious driving experience, whether you’re cruising or overtaking.