This project is being done in collaboration with SAE. During the first week, we kicked off our brainstorming session for a team name. There were quite a few names that were brought up. The final contenders were Sella and Unclutch. We floated this by our advisors and they really liked the idea of Clutch. We then spent few more minutes discussing and decided to go with Clutch for our team name. Since the project is about automobiles and also since clutch has a lot of positivity, we decided to name our team Clutch.

We met our advisors this week and they gave us an introduction to the project and they told us about the Formula SAE team that’s working in main campus as a part of a SAE initiative. The advisors gave us a general idea about the project and explained to us what we can expect from the semester.

We also started working off a schedule for the team and core hours will be decided during the next week. Since we are all shopping for classes currently, we’ll have a better idea of our schedule by next week. That being said, we already have a calendar in place based on our current schedule and that worked well for us.

On Friday, we had a client call with SAE. We had Kevin, Frank and Chris on the other end. Kevin is the Director of Training. Frank is the CPO, who along with Chris runs initiatives like SAE Formula. They gave us a brief understanding of what to expect from the project. They are looking at a platform which can train its students to be better professionals when they make the transition from college to the industry. They want us to concentrate on three entities of a student’s development namely, problem solving skills, project management skills and teamwork.

The more we discussed with them, it was evident that they wanted something that is widely available for anyone. They were leaning towards a web-based game as it can be deployed and tested easily. They are also keen to have a multiplayer experience as it will teach the students team-building and improve their communication while playing the game. The target audience for the game are under-graduate and high school students.

They had also pointed out to us that there is a team in CMU that’s part of Formula SAE. On plan is to get in touch with the students or their faculty advisor to learn more about the project. The call ended with them promising to visit the ETC sometime and also told us they’d be happy to host us at the headquarters as the semester rolls on.