ACC Receives 1st Place in EV Switch Lab Design Competition

We’re proud to announce that students from the Arlington Career Center’s Auto Tech Program took 1st place for their design and innovation on the ARCC_EV project—a custom-built electric vehicle. With leadership from Auto Tech Collision Repair instructor, Mr. Wilmer Castro, the students engineered a series of creative upgrades that set them apart from their competition. A huge thank you to Mr. Jordan Kivitz and Dr. Miriam Thomas for their continued support of the EV project, and congratulations to our entire EV Design Team for showing what’s possible when passion meets hands-on project-based learning!

Students were held to the following design criteria: 

• Functionality (ex: truck bed, dashboard modifications)
• Aesthetic (ex: rear spoiler wing, side panels)
• Efficiency (ex: increasing range or reducing drag)
• Safety (ex: backup camera, blind spot warning)

The EV design team used Raspberry Pi to control throttle functions and bring their car one step closer to being autonomous. They fabricated customs brackets to add two additional seats to the back of our vehicle and they added an LED kit under the car that is controlled by an app on our phone to change color speed and style of the lights. They also 3D printed new brackets to upgrade the car’s rear-view mirror.