UP Karting Team

UP Karting Team

We are a newly formed student engineering team from the University of Patras Greece, created in 2025 by five undergraduate friends who share a passion for electric mobility, power electronics, and innovation.

Our goal is to design and build a 100% electric single-seater go-kart, engineered entirely by us — both mechanically and electrically.

The project is part of our diploma thesis, but also a long-term vision to create a fully functional electric vehicle from scratch, with the ultimate goal of completing the build and running the kart in real kart tracks for testing and performance evaluation.

What We Are Building

• We aim to develop a fully custom electric powertrain, including:

1. Custom high-power three-phase inverter
2. Custom BMS for our Li-ion battery pack
3. Custom ECU / vehicle controller
4. Custom telemetry & protection systems
5. Reworked chassis from a racing go-kart

Every PCB, algorithm, and control board is designed by our team.

Why We Need PCBWay’s Support

• Our project requires the manufacturing of three PCBs: the Control PCB, the Gate Driver PCB, and the Power Stage PCB of our custom inverter. All three are essential for completing the electric powertrain. Especially for the power stage, we need heavy-copper 4-layer PCBs (6 oz external layers and 3 oz internal layers) to safely handle continuous currents above 100A. Manufacturing boards with such copper thickness is extremely expensive — far beyond what a student team can afford.The University provides very limited funding, so most expenses are covered from our personal savings. A sponsorship or discount from PCBWay would greatly help us continue the development of the inverter and complete our electric drivetrain.

In return, we will:

1. Feature PCBWay as a major sponsor on our finished vehicle
2. Include PCBWay in our published diploma thesis (June 2025)
3. Display PCBWay logo on our PCBs and final event presentations

Current Status

• The project is in an early but active development stage:

1. Inverter Power, Gate Driver, and Control PCB — the first prototype is currently being designed.
2. Battery pack — cell selection and mechanical design completed.
3. Mechanical integration — the chassis has been stripped and is currently on the way for painting and structural repairs, as it had several issues that must be fixed before component mounting.

Team Members

A team of 5 undergraduate students in Electrical & Computer Engineering:

1. Power electronics
2. Embedded systems
3. Control Systems
4. Mechanical integration
5. CAD design

This project is more than an academic assignment — it is our first step into the world of electric vehicle engineering.

We hope to inspire other students in our university to create engineering teams and explore innovation in EV design.

Go Kart single seater vehicle

Inverter Power PCB

Inverter Gate Driver PCB

Inverter PCBs Assembly