The Human Powered Vehicle Challenge is a competition based design project hosted by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). This competition was established to encourage college students to implement the skills learned throughout their engineering classes and apply the concepts to practical engineering.
Northern Arizona University has a long history with the American Society of Mechanical Engineering and the Human Powered Vehicle Challenge. The student section has competed many times over the years. Traditionally the vehicles were tandem style, powered by two riders, though the most recent entry fit a single rider and was designed for speed. Over the course of NAU's history they have consistantly done well and recieved recognition for their entries, most recently having placed in the speed event and recieved 5th overall.
This year the team has ambitious goals both in relation to the vehicle design and for the competition. The team strives to place in each of the three events and to place in the top three overall.
Other goals of the team include reaching speeds of over 40 mph, having the overall weight under 80 lbs and having all capstone team members ride the vehicle at competition.
The competition includes either a sprint or a drag race to demonstrate the speed of the vehicle. The sprint is an individual, timed event with a flying start to achieve a top speed on a closed course. The drag event is a tournament style race where vehicles compete two at a time to be the first to cross a set finish line. The style of the speed event is selected closer to the event.
The endurance race tests the vehicles ability to handle an urban environment. The race is a 2.5 hour, timed relay race with multiple laps around a closed course.
The race will include the following obstacles: a stop sign, up and down grades, a hairpin turn, rumble strips, a slalom and a quick reaction turn.
The design event allows teams to demonstrate the effective application of established principles and practices of design engineering to the development of the team's vehicle.
For the design event the team will present a report that concisely describes the vehicle design, analysis, and testing processes and results.
This section of Innovation refers to enhanced vehicle safety. The description of this section is as follows:
Safety features implemented in almost every inductry have improved drastically over recent years. This area challenges teams to innovate in HPV safety.
This section of Innovation refers to sustainable manufacturing techinques during the vehicle construction. The description of this section is as follows:
In the current enviornmentally conscience enviornment, new material and manufactuing techniques need to be developed to ensure the global responsibility of modern technological innovations. This area challenges teams to innovate in the manufacturing of their HPV.
This section of Innovation refers to eather protection systems. THe description of this section is as follows:
A large challenge facing human powered vehicle owners is protection from weather. This area challenges teams to identify and implement a weather protection innovation to make their HPV more competitive with automobiles.
The competition is offered as an East and West tournament each year. This year the West competition is located in San Jose, California sponsored by Santa Clara Valley. The East competition is located in Orlando, Florida and is sponsored by University of Central Florida.
Our team is still evaluating which competition we will be attending.
Each of our capstone team members will work on all aspects of the bike. From design and analysis to the consturction and testing. In keeping with this goal for the project every member of the team and only team members will race the bike at competition. The team will select the fastest riders to compete in the speed/drag event and then have all team members ride for the endurance race.
The College of Engineering, Forestry, and Natural Sciences each year hosts an Undergraduate Research and Design Symposium at which each capstone team presents their project. This is done through both an oral presentation and a poster display. This year the symposium will occur on April 25th and 26th.
