Teams learn a great deal in designing and fabricating an electric vehicle from the ground up. This takes a vast number of hours and a huge commitment from students, parents, teachers, mentors and directors. With this in mind, what does the forum think about setting two divisions-one for "engineered" vehicles and one for "kit" vehicles? Engineered vehicles will be those that are designed from results of brainstorming as opposed to results of online purchasing. Kit vehicles are those that are purchased and put together from a set of instructions. I believe this will allow for the nurturing of creativity thus giving the students a better taste of the engineering process.
I think it is not necessarily fair that you can purchase a kit or a whole car for that matter. But many high schools pass down their cars year after year, since it was the schools money that went into it. So at that point what is the car considered? Because it may very well have been built from the ground up by a student, but it could have been 5-10 years ago and now it is just maintained by the current students. I think it is fantastic to encourage new designs and to be more active in the design and building processes but to have separate classes may cause some issues.
I agree with Shannon. Years ago there were two teams with purchased cars and two or three others with cars totally built by the teacher and other adults and the kids raced them. Those kids bragged a lot about how they did but they had no idea how or why their car was built like it was and I feel they gained very little. Our little student designed and built cars started beating their cars and both teams dropped out of the program. At Willamette we cut up and start from scratch on 98% of our cars every year (have kept 5 of about 300 cars for a second year in 19 years). After our August/September Eugene Celebration race the second year students, seniors, dismantle and cut up all of the student cars from the last season. The senior then start to build their new ones from scratch. The juniors learn skills, do 'hands on physics' activities related to the cars, do research etc. and start their cars in January with races starting the first weekend in March. We have built as many as 22 new cars in a year (I was much younger and foolish then) and are trying to finish 16 this year. I agree that there are various thoughts out there as to what the students should learn in a class like this. Some want students to do all of the math, etc. and concentrate on a couple of areas, others just build cars with out any thought on how or why they work, some give the kids a set of plans to follow or have a jig for the frames and tell the kids to build their cars a certain way. Willamette does a 'shotgun' approach, we talk a lot about everything but don't do much math to prove it, just demonstrations with mock ups in wind tunnels, make small projects 1/10 scale prototype models, talk about the pros and cons of various designs, etc. We have new students look at the cars from last year before they are cut up and sit in/drive them so they get a feel. The juniors, 1st year, also see the senior cars as they are being built. They do research on line looking at other teams cars and ask questions of other racers. The students then divide themselves into teams of 2 to 6 and start to design and work as a team (some better than others) Then we see what the students come up with from a 300 pound tank to a too delicate car, tricycle or tri-car, laying down or sitting upright, various steering systems, axles types, etc. I offer advice but do not tell them they can or can't build something as long as it will be safe in the end. In years past we have competed against several 'purchased' cars some very early Cloud cars 17 years ago as well as cars totally build by adults and engineers as well as many college teams. I will put our cars up against any of them and be proud. 4 or five years ago we had two years with a couple of great cars and they beat Dave Cloud teams in a couple of races (and Cloud did not breakdown) As the teams in Florida know that take some doing. I think with proper teaching, encouraging and good prep a student designed/built car can compete with a kit or purchased car. We don't win against them all of the time but sometimes things come together and when a high school student can beat a car made (and raced) by an adult who makes a living building/selling cars it does more than anything else ever will for that team's member's confidence and the students grow so much. I also believe that even for those MANY teams of ours or others that may not beat the 'professional' cars or even the top cars in the area if they design and build the car themselves from the ground up they have gained so much experience and pride that they will have a better chance at being successful in life after high school.
Yesterday in Lacey WA we finally had 3 junior teams come together (my seniors still all fell apart!!) and do great. One was just 1.4 miles (3 laps) back from a Cloud car and they were so excited about how 'NEXT TIME' they will do this and this to improve and try to get within a mile!!!! The whole class is now out to improve and help each other learn and get ready for this Saturday's race.
In other words I want to keep all of the high school students in one class.
