 let's go okay perfect what's up hi guys how are you doing or great how are you good thank you we'll go ahead and get started so i'll just introduce myself first my name is ava i'm the peer advisor for csc and i'm currently a junior majoring in computer science engineering and today we have spark erasing here with us to tell us a little bit about their project team so do you guys want to go ahead and introduce yourselves yeah absolutely i'm peter i'm a senior studying mechanical engineering i'm the project manager for spark uh but i do i'm involved in the fair amount of cs stuff so that's why i'm here and i'm here with chris yeah i'm a sophomore but i'm the software lead of the project team uh so i deal with all of the computer science on the team awesome okay that's great um and then just so you get started if you guys want to talk a little about what is spark um and kind of like what your main goal is um with this organization yeah so spark is a project team through engineering obviously um our goal is to design build and race electric motorcycles um our you know ultimate thing we don't have a specific sort of uh like sanctioned event we go to um which we love and gives us the flexibility sort of go and compete in any kind of motorcycle race we want to be um so that could be anywhere from like dirt bike racing to like land speed records but we choose to do road racing uh and that is sort of really fun because we don't race against we do race against other college teams we also race against a lot of privateer teams and some you know like professional teams uh in like real world professional club and professional racing um so the ultimate goal is to build uh sort of the fastest electric bike we can specifically for racing um and and show the world what university michigan and what spark is able to do or sort of exist in a cool spot too because electric motorcycles aren't that you know like they're on the it's not really developed industry or market yet so we get the luxury of being able to like sort of be on the cutting edge of the entire like my industry as it exists so we that's why we love that's great that's great overview um and then if you also want to go into maybe talk about the different teams that you have within spark um and kind of what they're called or what they do within those themes yeah so we do a lot of the major like subdivisions just based off like the discipline of them so there's a mechanical team um there's a software team and then there's an electrical engineer and our business team of course because we have to pay for what we're doing we cannot forget about but that's sort of the main subdivisions and then beyond that we'll have like um team leads be below that so like busting all those big disciplines up in like the respective subsections in the bike so for software for example there's like an embedded lead um go out like a powertrain control uh data yeah data analytics display and then it's the same mechanical has a suspension lead and a powertrain lead more than i can count yeah so let's sort of look the hierarchy we run it yeah that's awesome okay that's awesome there's different teams um and then what kind of skills can people learn through spark or like what kind of skills have you guys learned so many so many skills whatever you decide you want to learn so peter has learned everything about this bike he knows it inside and out um but the average member i would say learns a very unique set of skills that's unlike anything you learn in school so for example software it's so different than anything you would learn in an eeks class as you're learning how to interface with multiple other companies and how to use their technologies together and it's it's unlike anything especially with it's such an undefined project that is really fun to like it's almost like real-world experience of what how coding is used out of the classroom yeah yeah it's it's a whole bunch of like hands-on like learning um stuff that the university like you it's it's you know it's hard to teach that um all the all the real world problem solving things when you actually get a real tangible problem how you're gonna solve this um that along with a lot of important like life skills like you know like pitching yourself to companies how you get sponsors how do you meetings with real people um not just like fake meetings like you have i personally like the basic skills you'll learn um as any member on any team is you're gonna learn how an ev works um so straight up that makes you super super sick asset um to anyone in this world knowing you know all the basic systems in ev how they go together how they interact and how they go to make you know a vehicle move um and then beyond that you know basically whatever you want to dive into we don't really like push anyone in specific directions so whatever you find interesting you can jump into that and you will pretty much learn all there is to know about that part of the industry especially with most ev stuff so we're on like you know a cutting edge of a lot of battery stuff we really have great ties with the battery lab university of michigan um we're doing custom made battery management system so that's like a lot of computer engineering and software engineering on that and that's going basically all the way down from you know what's currently at hand at the research level all the way through like what's been done in industry and what can we do to push it further um so i've learned an incredible amount i've gotten hired for a job because of spark um because all the stuff you learn i mean it's it's truly incredible and you and just the real world real world experience that you can't get in the classroom um in terms of design and manufacturing is unparalleled that's great that was a really great answer in school over the skills and then with that too do you think you need to have prior experience to join spark or did you guys have prior experience beforehand or what the typical experiences of people first did you have prior experience before i so i came into spark last year with absolutely zero by the time when i joined i was starting 280 um and really it it doesn't help at all to have prior experience if you know how to like work your way through the terminal of a computer for on the software side that's about all you need to do um and it's really about you kind of build up your own sense of maturity um on the team of understanding your boundaries of what problems you can try and solve and then that's where the learning comes it's picking your fights and finding out how to solve them which is very different than learning school which is here's a really well-defined spec of what you have to finish and we'll tell you how it's just going to be hard we don't really deal with that whatsoever especially on the software side and we do emphasize like learning we understand that you know we are a college team so everyone's working sort of part-time um you know full-time students part-time engineer on spark uh so we are big recruiting classes they're primarily freshmen or sophomores um we love to have you know seniors join but that's really that's really the the majority is freshmen so we prioritize learning we know each people what they need to know we know a lot of nothing our very little limited stuff that we do is taught in the classroom so we have um pretty much the first like half of the semester for when we when we start a design cycle we have new candidates new recruits in it's just focused on learning so we have a lot of established curriculum things we call crash courses for sure specific to um you know those sub teams we talked about below those major disciplines and so you don't even know anything coming in pretty much um oh i don't think anyone who runs the team chris is now running this entire software team didn't know anything a year ago um you learn fast hard uh but we encourage that because you know having our members be as well educated and as well you know competent as possible is the goal um and we can't expect industry professionals to step in when they're 18 19 years old so it's great to hear that you guys have like a set um curriculum it sounds like for teaching people on so that's that's really great to hear and then um moving on from that i kind of want to talk about competitions um you can mention that in the beginning that you guys do some um competitions so do you want to talk a little bit about what those are like um where you guys have traveled to before um and kind of like if everyone goes or i guess like overview competitions yeah so our competitions um currently for the bike we were built now um we're racing the arma racing series it's it's the american historical motorcycle racing association which is really funny um because we're nothing historical about what we're doing but um they're really supportive teams and they have a an electric class um and electric motorcycle racing classes are harder to find in the u.s than they are in europe so for right now we're racing with them and they've been super kind to us so so far we've gone to a race in new jersey over the summer that was in june uh that was super fun at new jersey and new jersey watersports park um and then we also went to a race in september in south haven michigan at gingerman raceways so uh they're super fun we rent an airbnb for the weekend and it's thursday's through sundays um we we get there on thursday and then it's all hands on deck like we're running long day as long hours we take generally around like 15 people to a race um in the past that's been basically everyone who wanted to come um we into in the future it's especially with like during those were like during the summer so we let people who actually show up um and then during the first week of the year so it's like a little more limited people who can be there we're having races sort of next semester we anticipate a lot more people coming um so in terms of who goes and who doesn't go it's more like a seniority thing who's going to be able to race and this is their last opportunity to who who has like four more years of opportunities to race as well as you know people who really are critical to making the bike run um it's not like so like chris and i will be there because we built and programmed the bike um and we you know know what's going on when things break because things always break it's a very hands-on unique experience of a weekend where every weekend we go we say it's going to be so fun we're gonna have so much free time and then it's 12 o'clock and we're working on the bike and like trying to figure out what went wrong today usually like six a.m to midnight days um working on the entire day because things always break inevitably but it's they are some favorite memories from college they're like so much fun um we can about sort of the people that we've worked with we've been on a team before and then you come back as like really good friends because you've been locked into you know weekend driving sometimes 12 hours out to new jersey um and it's super funny a lot of really interesting people at these races a lot of usually like older people with which are really cool vintage bikes but also some really cool modern bikes um it's more of like a club series so it's very relaxed atmosphere um and there's a lot of fun we had and i think i think having the competition aspect of it and being having the ability to go to races um and we do races like very frequently we try to race at like around six times a year that we have like a good what we're like um between like six times a year would be ideal um you know we race a lot so we have a lot of opportunities to have to have that fun um and keep campaigning a bike which we like um more compared to like other teams when they only you know unfortunately they only have like one shot a year um to compete that sort of you know me so so um that's why we love it and they're they're insane they're really really funny that's awesome that was really good over your competitions too they sound like a lot of fun like stress but fun so that's good um and then i wanted to ask so you had mentioned um briefly that you know spark has helped you a lot professionally too were companies have like recruited specifically for you because you're in spark so can you talk a little bit about what kind of companies people who are in spark typically go to work at um if there's like different companies or is it more in the same field um or i guess your experience as well there is a whole bunch um we send people all over the place we have like obviously we exist in the EV space so we set we've sent quite a few Tesla um and then adjacently quite a few SpaceX um it's like the big but i mean all over sort of like the industrial field um i know people who have gone to the company um jeez we have a whole like slideshow or whole like presentation slide about this but a lot of big name companies you know the automotive companies love to see us um we have and we have some new Arabian interns are sending out which is really cool but um oh yeah the EV companies love to see the experience with with EVs and not only EVs but the fact that we sort of have to approach EVs differently um we can't supply a generic EV recipe we're more you know limited on the power density we're we're smaller vehicle right we need to have a lot of power compared to how small we are um that just kind of how motorcycles work uh so you know in terms of how the amount of EV stuff we need to like cram into a small thing um it puts us you know in a unique experience to where you have a lot of like like a lot of experience making custom batteries you know integrating stuff that's not just off the shelf but more of a custom application which is cool um beyond that like oh i mean yeah there's a lot of big name companies lost small name companies um i know and like you know one of the interviews that i've done i've had i've had internships i've had internships but like spark is like the primary thing um companies want to hear about uh they love to see that the leadership opportunities should you want to be a leader of the team um and like just actual work you've done um that's sort of self motivated i think companies like to see that as well uh you know we're doing this for free and it's a large time commitment um and we're also on top so it shows really good time management it shows really good drop in ambition um as well and then and professionally we like to do a lot of stuff for like development so um our president leo who is uh he's doing the one-year master's program at ross for the masters of management but he is a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering so um he's done a lot this semester to really push a lot of like the business stuff and a lot of stuff he's learning in terms of like we do uh like a presentation on you know how president is interviewed all sorts of stuff so like yeah it's like this semester where it's sort of critical for students um we like to do a bit of those like business developmental things to help you know make make spark more than asset to the students because they're helping us out obviously um build bikes so you know we want to we want to show them the tools so they can get the most out of themselves definitely yeah that's great to hear there's like the professional opportunities as well you're part of that so it's awesome um and then with that too i was going to ask for professional opportunities but i think you answered that question um i also want to ask maybe about like some social events um do you guys tend to do social things as well we try yeah absolutely um try to do a bunch of stuff we social events are great for building the team environment um everyone's like when you have friends on the team you're way more likely to keep showing up yeah we want you to keep showing up so um you know beyond like the usual club things like parties and like whatever um we'll have like movie nights we'll have we played like volleyball instead of instead of having a general meeting we just went out in the north camp volleyball court played volleyball we recently had a sad who are iam soccer league yeah we were spark iam soccer um what else my spark minecraft server um for those who we have our own dedicated server for spark um and and a bunch of other ways we try to stay connected we do we try to do like silly things like tonight's meeting is going to be um where each of like the the team leaders is going to present on another one actually me and Chris are presenting presenting his information um which i'm going to gather you know so it's just more um more enjoyable more excited yeah in a better environment um because that just makes we found just makes it so much better both retention um that like we're everyone's part time so keeping people on enthusiastic and stuff about that right that's great that's really good to hear um and then moving on from that side i kind of want to talk a little bit about how specifically cse people can get involved so i know you mentioned christy the software lead so if you want to talk a little bit about maybe um how people can get involved in the software team if they're maybe new coming in so yeah really the all the all you have to do is get in touch with us um our e-mail website which will just lead you to our email um if you get in touch there's no like vetting interview application you just have to start showing up and you're on the team that's as much as it takes um because really it's not being on our team that matters it's like caring enough to dive in and learn what you're doing um what's gonna make make you feel like you're actually a part of the team um right now you're not gonna know what you're doing and you're not gonna really meet other people outside of your team and it will just feel like a job and a chore but if you show up to our meetings uh you'll be welcomed in um on the first day so that's as much as it takes just wanting to do it with that too and i previously you had mentioned there's different like sub teams in the software team how are people placed into those results specific ones people have to go into or is it just off of interest it's more of like what your interest is pretty much you don't really want to like box people in those certain teams even if yes you decide you want to do mechanical engineering or electrical engineering totally it's really we're just looking for people who are enthusiastic about what they're doing and that's that's that's it because that's what really matters honestly so like if they have a certain like skill that um that they might be better at we might encourage them to go one direction or another you know if they have like rigorous c++ experience you might throw them on a certain part of the team um but it really is up to them i think a lot of people actually come in as undecided and then bounce around between a lot of the sub teams or like the disciplines and figure out oh i like this part of engineering the best um and then each of our each of our leads like chris are like sort of advertising their their kind of engineering and then kind of getting but yeah it's it's what do they want to explore what do they feel interested in is what they can do and then if they don't want to do that they can bump around and choose what they want to do so that's great that's awesome um and then with it too i wanted to ask um kind of how the time commitment has been um for you guys or how you guys balance classes with it i know you mentioned too that a skill that you guys have learned has been time management so how has that been i guess balancing that with classes i'd say for for us or for me um the beginning of this semester this was the first semester that i was an admin on the team it was it was a real shock at the beginning of the semester how much time this team was going to take um because i didn't realize how much logistical work goes into running a team this big um but now that my feet are under me it really just feels like it's a part of my life and it doesn't feel like a time commitment anymore as much a thing i do like going to any other class um so i would say it's an hour to a day on average um but if you're good with time like it doesn't it doesn't matter it'll it'll vary too so like i mean for us we're running a team with like a hundred engineers on it there's there is like Chris had a lot of logistical work that has to go into that um but if you're just like a member um you know that we i say i don't care if you put in one hour or if you put in a hundred hours per week um we're happy to have you help as long as you're consistent up and you're enthusiastic about your work um we don't want to you to get in the way of your classes like flunk out of your classes um i choose to flunk out of my because i run the team of it i'm not going to make you do the same um that's not so much but um you know like chris said i think we like to sell or like to have people buy into the dream um what we do is really really sick really cool it's an amazing opportunity for people to do this in college um especially to like not have to like interview for it or pay for it or have really any negative consequences get to do like what we're passionate about so um if we can get people to buy into that then then the time commitment just becomes like oh it's like another class i'm taking or it's like my hobby um spark is definitely before the hobby the hobby um yeah and and for like you know if you're holding a leadership position um we'll like you know like the the seriousness of them will step up so from like a member it's like a team it's like this can lead to like you know the top of the thing um we'll stress during like elections say like this is you know this is a more serious commitment and there's definitely people that are just so happy to take that on and there's certain people that you know you with you know where they are in terms of how much time they're spending um spark and outside of spark and so i think that affords people a lot of different ways to be involved without being forced to do too much um definitely didn't want to become the type of team that's going to be hit like crazy timelines or crazy quotas and like becoming our life unless you want so that's it right that's that's really good that the manage the time management is there as well so for can i ask really quickly um for software team though is there like a weekly meeting or something like that i guess like a general commitment for general members for the general commitment is that on sundays from one to three um you'll be up at the wilson center around the wilson center um although that does still even even that which is our software meeting varies um sometimes smaller groups won't be able to make or will have a better time so they'll as much it's really we can work around anyone's schedule and then the same Tuesday nights we have our general meetings um and those you can't really work around but a couple no one we're not taking attendance it's just whether you want to go or not yeah that's great that's great to hear um and then i guess my last question i wanted to ask was for both of you what's been your favorite part of spark then i think my favorite part i think my favorite thing we've done on spark was our first race um felt like all the hard work that i had watched other people put in last semester paid off um but now like out of the things i've actually done i think seeing the team come together this this year and this semester has been the most rewarding aspect of it of it feels like people are now buying into what we grew to love over the summer absolutely yeah in terms of like specific events i have to agree that first really fun um we hadn't used a bike in a long time because of like covid so it had been in three years i think and so like no one on the team ever raced before we had been working for a long time on our that that bike atlas to get it done so fun being getting it seeing it on the track seeing it work we finished it like weeks a week before we left um just fighting to get it done um and then being there and happy mostly um was really fun sort of being on a vacation it was like summer with like a bunch of our friends um getting close buddy we were like you know and we're in a completely different state so that was really that was really fun um but like yeah like like chris said um i've been i've been on the team since 2019 so well yeah so it's been a long time and i've been running the team for like two and a half years uh so seeing sort of like the regrowth post covid sort of getting the team back on its feet and being something more than it ever was before um and all those things we put into fruition you know like a year ago finally coming in and and being impactful let us build or have our team like double triple the size of it and be way more effective and we're taking on projects that are way more ambitious than we ever thought we'd ever take on and we're getting companies sponsoring us that are bigger than we ever thought would be um so you know coming in to like a little rinky deep team um leo and i always have to say we joined did join when there was like 15 people on the team and now we're a force we reckon with um you know both just university and also sort of in in the world which we would really like to see so it's fun it's fun to be on it yeah that was a great answer um those were all my questions here so i really appreciate you guys joining us today to answer everything um i personally want to join spark now i think it sounds amazing so that's really awesome um but like i said thank you so much and we'll have this recording posted later so people can come watch um again hear all your amazing answers so thank you so much have you guys today bye