Words of Wisdom in Wicklow

October, 2019

County Wicklow, Ireland

After a short flight to Dublin and a quick drive the coast, Katie and I arrived at the oldest hotel in Ireland: The Wooden Bridge in Arklow. As excited as I was for the week ahead, my lack of electronics background made me quite anxious that I wouldn't understand what was being taught.

Early Monday morning I arrived at the Course HQ set in Wicklow's beautiful countryside. As all the course arrived, we quickly got to know each other and soon discovered we were from a complete range of backgrounds. Some had electricals knowledge, others were experienced car mechanics and one even worked for a world famous EV YouTube channel. We soon met Kevin Sharpe who arranged the whole course through New Electric Ireland. Kevin introduced us to the course runner Damien Maguire, whose YouTube channel and website evbmw.com were how I found out about the course originally.

The course started with a basic history of EV design and progression, covering safety with high and low voltage systems. We were soon diving into the layout and explanation of all the major components that make up an EV. Damien was patient and happy to answer any of our questions. Kevin showed us many of the actual components and how they integrated with each other. By day 2 we were working as a team to build a complete DC drive system for a vehicle. By day 3 we were building an AC drive system. One of the most important things we learned was how to engage with the community and learn from experts using the openinverter.org forum.

We all came away from the course with a wealth of knowledge and a clear understanding of the first steps we would need to take to make our projects a reality.