To better understand their electrical engineering curriculum, seniors in Engineering III are working together to rewire a non-functioning electric car that previous students built five years ago.

“Wiring an electric car is a great experience for them, and it also teaches them the basics of the curriculum,” Engineering teacher Rizalito Nicolas said. “I think a few years ago, the seniors short circuited the fuses, which caused the car to not work for a year, so we had to buy some parts to replace them, and rewire everything. That’s why once we got it working, I thought we could do this project every year, I just need to teach them [seniors] how to properly wire it.”

Before students could apply their knowledge, they studied different electrical diagrams and circuits needed to wire the electric car.

“Wiring can get very complicated, so having the diagrams itself will help us understand where everything is, and know exactly how it should look when we work on the car,” senior Joshua Yero said. “Wiring an electric car is going to be intriguing, since it’s different from what we usually do, so I’m definitely excited to see how it turns out.”

Color coding each different wire on their diagrams has helped some seniors better understand why each wire connects to a different part within the circuit.

“I found that it’s really easy to get confused if you don’t color code your diagram neatly,” senior Abigail Battaglia said. “It makes it difficult to trace wires back to their source and to where they need to be connected in the circuit, which is not great if you need to replicate the diagram on an actual circuit. Overall though, figuring out where each wire leads to is pretty easy, you just need to keep track of your positive and negative wires.”

By participating in this hands-on project, many students are looking forward to actually working in an engineering environment later on. 

“I am definitely excited to be working on the wiring,” Battaglia said. “I find it very interesting, as it isn’t something you get to do too often. I haven’t had experience doing something like this before, but I’ve always had an interest in electrical circuits, and this is the first time I’ve gotten the opportunity to apply my knowledge in a real-life scenario.” 

Nicolas hopes students apply all of the knowledge they have been studying to benefit themselves and will be able to use it in emergencies. 

“I think this is a good skill that they [students] can take with them for the rest of their life,” Nicolas said. “They need to wire up the whole car, meaning that they properly connect all the wires to all the instruments and to the battery so that it works properly. I hope these students feel accomplished when they take something that isn’t working, and make it work.”