Focus This Week

This week is focused on Invention, Intellectual Property, and Income. The objectives are to select a license structure for the final project, protect the intellectual property while keeping files open-source, and design a sustainable distribution or educational business model. I selected a Creative Commons open-source license, defined copyright notices, and created a future roadmap for Go-Kart kits in schools.

Intellectual Property & Business Plan

1. Selecting the License

To ensure the project remains open and accessible for learning, while preventing commercial entities from selling the design without contribution, I selected the following licenses:

  • Hardware Designs and Documentation: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
    This license allows anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, and build upon my work, provided they give appropriate credit, link to the license, indicate if changes were made, do not use the material for commercial purposes, and distribute their contributions under the same license.
  • Software & Firmware Source Code: MIT License.
    The MIT License is a permissive free software license. It allows commercial/personal reuse, modification, and distribution of the source code as long as the copyright notice and permission notice are included.

2. Business Model and Dissemination

The Electric Go-Kart is designed as an educational STEAM kit for schools, universities, and fab labs in Georgia:

  1. Fabrication Workshops: Fablab Dilijan and GITA (Georgia's Innovation and Technology Agency) can organize hands-on summer bootcamps where students learn welding, CNC machining, 3D printing, and electronics design by assembling their own Go-Kart.
  2. Modular Kit Sales (Non-Profit): We can package and supply "dashboard electronics kits" containing the custom PCBs and sensors, along with flat-pack CNC plywood seat sheets, allowing schools to focus on programming and mechanics without sourcing individual parts.
  3. Open-Source Dissemination: All schematics, CAD assembly files, code repositories, and assembly instructions are hosted publicly on GitLab Pages, encouraging community contributions and local adaptations.

3. Future Development Roadmap

  • Version 2.0 PCB: Integrate the motor controller and the telemetry dashboard onto a single custom PCB to reduce wiring congestion.
  • Regenerative Braking: Optimize motor firmware to harvest kinetic energy during braking cycles, charging the batteries and increasing range.
  • Mobile Application: Develop a mobile app that connects to the dashboard over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) to log speed profiles and graph telemetry.

Have you answered these questions?

  • Created a dissemination plan for your final project?
    Yes. My dissemination plan (releasing design files under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 and conducting STEM workshops) is detailed in Dissemination.
  • Outlined future possibilities and described how to make them probabilities?
    Yes. Future steps like batch kit productions and upgrading to lithium iron phosphate batteries are outlined.
  • What tasks have been completed, and what tasks remain?
    Yes. The status of fabricated parts and steering calibration is detailed in Project Status.
  • What's working? what's not?
    Yes. The functional dashboard and motor drive are listed as working, while active throttle mapping is in progress.
  • What questions need to be resolved?
    Yes. Resolving vibration-induced connectors isolation is listed as an open question.
  • Planned what will happen when?
    Yes. A Gantt-style timeline for assembly and track runs is scheduled.
  • What have you learned?
    Yes. My reflections on integrating mechanics, CAD/CAM, and custom electronics are summarized.

Week 19 — Summary

This week defined the intellectual property boundaries and future directions of the project:

License Selected

Selected CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 for CAD drawings and MIT for C++/Python source files to protect and share resources.

Education Kits

Designed a distribution strategy to package CNC flat-packs and custom PCBs for STEAM educational courses.

Public Repositories

Committed all design files to public Git environments to enable global access and collaborative peer reviews.

Future Roadmap

Mapped future software upgrades, mobile dashboards over BLE, and regenerative battery charge circuits.