University of Kentucky Team Wins Fluke Student Contest

Jan. 9, 2015
Team Used the Fluke Connect System to Increase Efficiency of Solar Car Vehicles

The team from the University of Kentucky won the Fluke Connect Student Contest, which tested the skills, innovation and business application of student teams enrolled in two- and four-year colleges, universities, trade/tech schools and apprenticeship programs.

Fluke Connect is a free smartphone app for both the Apple and Google app stores that works with over 20 different Fluke test tools and allows users to identify and diagnose problems quickly and confidently, while securely sharing data whenever and with whom they want.

University of Kentucky students Joshua Morgan, Daniel Cambron, John Broadbent, Zach Reeder and Chris Heintz, and advisor Matthew Morgan, designed a project that conducted live testing of performance parameters on a solar car. Their objective was to increase the efficiency of the solar car vehicle by at least 10% percent, while saving time by quickly finding and minimizing inefficient components. Using Fluke Connect, they saw a 16% decrease in idle energy consumption and 5.5% increase in dynamic energy efficiency.  

“The projects produced by the University of Kentucky Solar Car team and the other finalists showcase how the next generation of engineers and technicians will take measurements, and share and transfer data amongst their team members—a  key reason for the development for Fluke Connect,” said Salvatore Paralatore, vice president of global marketing for Fluke Corp. “We look forward to hosting the University of Kentucky team at Fluke Park and using the feedback and learning from all the team projects in the continued development of the Fluke Connect App and tools.”

The other four finalists were teams from Brigham Young University, California Polytechnic State University, San Jacinto College North and Western Iowa Technical Community College.
The Brigham Young team worked on live testing of the temperature on friction bit joint welds; California Polytechnic’s team conducted a commercial energy audit; the San Jacinto team worked on improving the efficiency of charging AC systems; and the Western Iowa team worked on troubleshooting intermittent electrical issues in wind turbines.

“We wanted students—the future professionals in their industries—to demonstrate what process improvements they could achieve by capturing and sharing data wirelessly amongst all their team members. All five finalist teams showed ingenuity in their projects, with the University of Kentucky standing out because of its team collaboration and ability to demonstrate very specific performance improvements in the solar car,” said Paralatore.

The University of Kentucky team and its adviser receive a paid trip to Fluke headquarters in north Seattle in March to spend a day meeting with Fluke executive and engineering leadership, tour Fluke engineering and manufacturing, and see the Boeing manufacturing facility and Future of Flight Aviation Center next door. The school’s department receives $1,000 worth of Fluke tools, and the Fluke Connect tools used in the contest submission, worth approximately $2,500.

The winners of the Fluke Connect Student Contest were determined by which team made the biggest impact using the Fluke Connect system, with 75% of the decision based on the evaluation by the panel of six industry judges and 25% on the public vote on Facebook.