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Once again, the Topsail Electric Vehicles were on display at the largest Festival in Hampstead each year, the Spot Festival. A Spot is a fish that is caught off our local waters, and each year thousands of visitors come to enjoy music, fun and most of all, the delicious Spot dinner. The event is a local fundraiser for the schools and fire departments, so everyone comes out to support the community.
We had a good showing as usual and fielded plenty of questions about the vehicles. The team did an excellent job as always. The festival is usually our first major display and the students were ready for the task. We get the same questions year after year, but we have noticed that the general public is becoming more aware of electric and hybrid vehicles. This is a good sign, and it also helps that gas prices are pretty high right now, making more people think about alternative fuel sources.
We had a guest speaker today from the CFCC Paint and Auto Body program. Aimee Abreya stopped in to speak about and promote her program at CFCC for high school students who would like the opportunity to take the classes while still in high school for dual enrollment. She also brought a very expensive paint booth simulator to allow students to practice painting in a virtual world! The simulator was an awesome experience for several students who braved the virtual helmet and tried their skills at painting virtual body panels. Every experience like this is a great opportunity for students to see what is available as a career. We always need a vehicle painted when we do a conversion, so this would really help us out as well.
Bailey Hicks from Wilmington local channel WECT TV6 came early this morning to do a feature story on our EV program. She was very impressed with the class and their knowledge of the vehicles. She was especially impressed by the fact that the EV13 Team attends the class every day at 7:15, an hour before regular school begins. We were able to give a few interviews and explain how we were preparing for the NEAT competition next week. Davis Sessions and Matt van der Wal did an excellent job in front of the camera. Bailey was very interested in the performance of the vehicles, so we did not hesitate to take her for a spin in the MR2. As you can tell by the picture above, she definitely has an "EV Grin"!
We were then invited to help promote their program at the school during their Fall Carnival fundraiser. We drove both vehicles into Wilmington to their site and set up for display. Most everyone was very impressed by the Topsail EV Team and their knowledge of the vehicles. Hopefully the WCA club will make it to the EV Challenge final event this year with a newly converted car.
We finally got around to installing battery heaters in the truck battery boxes today. The heaters are a rubber pad that consumes .58 Amps at 120 Volts and produces 70 Watts of power. We tested them first and found they have an internal thermistor that opens the circuit at around 115 degrees and closes it back when the temperature falls to below 100. The pads are very flat and we were able to install eleven of them under our 16 Trojan T-145 batteries. We monitored a pad under a 12 volt battery we have for 6 hours and found that during that time, the electrolyte rose to about 100 degrees. We should have better results when they are in the insulated boxes and all the batteries are grouped together. The process took most of the day and also allowed the new EV 13 team the opportunity to learn how to wire a parallel circuit, crimp wires and check the specific gravity of the cell electrolyte. The install was completed and the heaters work great. It takes quite a while to heat the cells, but it will be a welcome addition when cold weather hits. Kudos to the new team that showed up to perform the work on a teacher workday! 
Every year at the homecoming game, we get the opportunity to lead the homecoming court around the track during halftime. This year we had both vehicles and were announced over the public address system in front of a crowd of over 2500 people. Sometimes exposure like this is invaluable. It is the first time younger kids or visitors get to see the EV's in action. Hopefully we are planting the seeds for the future. Very proud to be associated with the THE EV program and the students that help make it possible each year.
Once again, the Topsail Electric Vehicles were on display at the largest Festival in Hampstead each year, the Spot Festival. A Spot is a fish that is caught off our local waters, and each year thousands of visitors come to enjoy music, fun and most of all, the delicious Spot dinner. The event is a local fundraiser for the schools and fire departments, so everyone comes out to support the community.