Round 2

Wow; last year certainly was interesting, and the time really flew by.  It was our first time doing Supermileage as a school (Baja's the usual), and we learned a lot.

I'll catch you up on what went down over the course of the 2011-2012 year.

Here is our first prototype frame, nearly completed.

This would be used at a test car for the first semester, but would not be the final vehicle brought to competition.

Here's the test (AKA, bogey) car with wheels, a steering system, and brakes.

Things didn't always go as planned (which I suppose is a good life lesson).

But here's the finished bogey car, running strong, and giving us a lot of useful knowledge for building the real thing.

The new frame was constructed using 3/4" steel square tubing, with wooden jigs built for each section to ensure accuracy of construction.

Here is the completed new frame, freshly painted black.

Significant progress made on the vehicle.

This particular drivetrain setup included a manual clutch, which was unfortunately unable to be used due to inherent problems with the clutch's design.  Ultimately, the team decided a centrifugal clutch was the best option.

The team constructed a foam negative of the shell design.  This pink creature soon gained the name "The Manatee."


Unfortunately, the Manatee was soon discovered to be less useful than initially thought.  The thermoformer project was never completed, so we couldn't mold our body panels using this method.

The team explored other options for shell fabrication.  The method used consists of rigid plastic profiles (ribs), spaced at given intervals, with thin plastic bridging the gaps.  The ribs were cut out on the waterjet using half inch polycarbonate.

The thin plastic was then either glued, plastic-welded, or screwed to the ribs as a means of attachment.

We made it to Michigan!

Here, some final adjustments are being made to the car in the pit area.

Here is the car on a run around the track; the team got three solid runs in during the day. A final fuel economy of 239mpg was achieved, as well as a 3rd place design report award.

These scores placed Rowan in 9th place overall, in a field of 32 competitors.






The whole team is back on the project this year, with a couple of new recruits as well.  Some new goals for this year include: electronic fuel injection, a lighter aluminum frame, and general improvement on last year's problem areas.  The new car will be completely redesigned, and I hope to post some progress soon.

Also, here's an (almost) team photo, taken from the top of a trailer.