I participated in the Minnesota Technology Education Association's Supermileage Challenge in May. It was basically the same thing except it was just a bunch of high school teams. It really is a great competition, I learned a lot and had tons of fun.
My team ended up with a top mileage of 305 mpg, this was for the stock class. Fairly good considering we had limited time, budget, and experience.
The way our competition worked is this: Each team is given a fuel bottle and it is weighed before the start. You then go around 2 laps (of the 3 mile track at Brainerd International Raceway) for a total of 6 miles. They then weigh your fuel bottle again to determine how much gas is used (making sure there are no air bubbles in the fuel line). This ends up a pretty accurate way of determining gas mileage. The weight of the gas really shouldn't matter that much, since more weight would mean you carry your momentum longer. You have to complete 6 runs and they take the average of that.
Now since we are high school students, our main goal was to build a working car. You then focus on aerodynamics, good bearings so it rolls well, wheel alignment, steering, and driving practice. Getting practice is key. Not only to determine what will break, but also to get good at controlling your burns. Short burns at high rpm's get you up to speed(roughly 30, which was the max), at which point you cut the engine and coast down to around 10(you have to maintain an average of 15). By the end of the 2 day competition, you saw drivers getting very good at rolling to a stop inches over the finish line.
It was a really fun competition, we saw some very cool cars with everything from carbon fiber bodies, to computer sensors and lcd displays mounted on the steering wheel, and you could download all the data to a computer for analysis. Sweet stuff.
Well, if you'd dig a little deeper on their site you'd find this:
"Purpose of Establishment
Solar Lab will conduct various activities to realize a clean energy society. Its focus is to present exhibitions to create an interest in global environmental issues and photovoltaic science among the younger generation which will lead in the future. We hope this museum becomes a "Place promoting Life" where new activities will be created through visitors, staff, business enterprises, and regional communities thinking about and discovering the relationship among the "Sun," "global environmental issues," "photovoltaics science," and "human beings.""
They also have the dimensions listed. Now the thing I would like to know is the actual cost of construction. $5; $500,000; $500,000,000? Who knows?
Anybody that really wants one of these, absolutely do not even consider dishing out $395 for it. You can find the plans somewhere for about $15(if not you can make your own plans), then another $30 for parts _maybe_. I built one about 5-10 years ago, and it's great fun. I still pull it out every once in a while and shoot down some G.I. Joe's:-P.
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Believe it or not, I recently got a piece of spam that was an advertisement for McAfee SpamKiller. Talk about irony.
I participated in the Minnesota Technology Education Association's Supermileage Challenge in May. It was basically the same thing except it was just a bunch of high school teams. It really is a great competition, I learned a lot and had tons of fun.
My team ended up with a top mileage of 305 mpg, this was for the stock class. Fairly good considering we had limited time, budget, and experience.
The way our competition worked is this: Each team is given a fuel bottle and it is weighed before the start. You then go around 2 laps (of the 3 mile track at Brainerd International Raceway) for a total of 6 miles. They then weigh your fuel bottle again to determine how much gas is used (making sure there are no air bubbles in the fuel line). This ends up a pretty accurate way of determining gas mileage. The weight of the gas really shouldn't matter that much, since more weight would mean you carry your momentum longer. You have to complete 6 runs and they take the average of that.
Now since we are high school students, our main goal was to build a working car. You then focus on aerodynamics, good bearings so it rolls well, wheel alignment, steering, and driving practice. Getting practice is key. Not only to determine what will break, but also to get good at controlling your burns. Short burns at high rpm's get you up to speed(roughly 30, which was the max), at which point you cut the engine and coast down to around 10(you have to maintain an average of 15). By the end of the 2 day competition, you saw drivers getting very good at rolling to a stop inches over the finish line.
It was a really fun competition, we saw some very cool cars with everything from carbon fiber bodies, to computer sensors and lcd displays mounted on the steering wheel, and you could download all the data to a computer for analysis. Sweet stuff.
What's your uptime? How often do you crash? How often do you have major problems and/or what are your biggest problems?
What was the deal with the Dilbert logos? Were you just having fun, or were you actually looking for new logo submissions?
Well, if you'd dig a little deeper on their site you'd find this:
"Purpose of Establishment Solar Lab will conduct various activities to realize a clean energy society. Its focus is to present exhibitions to create an interest in global environmental issues and photovoltaic science among the younger generation which will lead in the future. We hope this museum becomes a "Place promoting Life" where new activities will be created through visitors, staff, business enterprises, and regional communities thinking about and discovering the relationship among the "Sun," "global environmental issues," "photovoltaics science," and "human beings.""
They also have the dimensions listed. Now the thing I would like to know is the actual cost of construction. $5; $500,000; $500,000,000? Who knows?
Anybody that really wants one of these, absolutely do not even consider dishing out $395 for it. You can find the plans somewhere for about $15(if not you can make your own plans), then another $30 for parts _maybe_. I built one about 5-10 years ago, and it's great fun. I still pull it out every once in a while and shoot down some G.I. Joe's :-P.