PROJECT TEAM
President Vice-President Treasurer Media Leads: Body Frame Electrical Steering Brake System |
ABOUT PROJECT
Energy Efficient Vehicle at CSU Sacramento is a student-run and student-organized group of mechanical engineering students. The team is diverse in ethnicity, gender, and age; with many members who speak English as their second language and others who are parents returning to school. The majority of team members are interested in pursuing careers in automotive engineering or sustainable energy. Going fully Electric!! BACKGROUND INFORMATION The Shell Eco-marathon is an annual competition for high school and university level student teams to build a vehicle with high fuel efficiency. The Americas division of the Eco-marathon takes place on a track on the streets of Detroit, Michigan and invites several schools to build a vehicle to compete. The competition is divided by fuel type (gasoline, hydrogen, and battery electric) and vehicle type (Prototype and UrbanConcept). The Eco-marathon is not a competition of speed, but of fuel efficiency, and teams will be evaluated on how far their vehicles are able to go without running out of fuel. Teams will be allowed six attempts at establishing a miles per gallon rating, and attempts will be considered valid only if the vehicle completes six laps with a minimum average speed of 15 mph. The current record holder is the ETH Zurich PAC-Car II, which attained a fuel efficiency of 12,665 mpg using hydrogen fuel. Extreme aerodynamic design and weight reduction were implemented in order to achieve this record. Energy Efficient Vehicle at CSU Sacramento is the Third team from CSU Sacramento to enter the Shell Eco-marathon, and faces the challenge of designing and manufacturing an energy efficient vehicle from scratch. The project was undergone to satisfy the requirement for the school’s senior project, in which a machine must be designed, manufactured, and tested by a group of students. The project has taken on a greater following at CSU Sacramento, however, as there are more students who are interested in participating in the manufacturing and competition portion of this project. The majority of the budget for the project is allocated to manufacturing, but time and resources will also have to be devoted to transporting the team and the vehicle to Detroit for the competition. |