Electric Go Karts

Final Go-Kart Entry

Our electric kart project has spanned the length of an entire semester. Although long, this project has been one of the most fun and engaging learning experiences I've had in my high school carrier. What set this project apart from others was it's learn-as-you-go style and hands-on lessons. We had to use our newly learned skills to problem solve as new issues arose in each specific group. Though I leaned many things over the semester, five things really stand out to me. First, working together in groups is crucial in long term projects. My group of three worked really well together and I think that we often found ourselves ahead of the class by effectively dividing up tasks so that we could all be working on something at once. Second, making a plan or step-by-step design of the project is very important. As we worked, I found that having a plan for each step of building the cart was really important to the work flow and vision of the kart. Without it, we would stop and couldn't work at the same time because we had to wait on people to help design the next part. Third, give yourself more time than you need. Before we started the project, our teacher, Mr. Varvil laid down specific goals for us to complete parts of our carts in a certain amount of time. Although we ended up working mostly at our own pace, we were far behind the assigned time frame and I often found our group spending much more time on one aspect of the cart than another which should have taken the same amount. Fourth, learn from your mistakes. In the four months that our project lasted, three of them were spent building the carts. This was highly impacted by the number of mistakes made and the hurtles we faced because of them. You're going to mess things up once in a while, but it's not a big deal, just learn something from welding your back rest upside down or else it was a waste of time. Lastly, engineers' jobs are to some problems. While working on a large project like this one, we encountered a lot of problems. It helped to break each step down into a problem statement and come up with a solution helped the planning process a lot.

The three largest obstacles we faced were time constraints, lack of skills, and our batteries. Because we only had an hour and a half per class, the flow of work and creativity were abruptly cut off every day. With extended periods of lime to work, we could have finished specific parts of the project much faster; i.e. welding the base frame or wiring the finished cart. Our lack of skills was only debilitating in that we had to learn as we went which cause for slower work. Our teacher wanted each of us to have a part in every aspect of the build so each of us had to learn how to weld, cut, bore, and design. In the long run, this way of teaching will result in much more knowledgeable students but it also consumes much more time. We over came this by helping teach each other so that we wouldn't have to experience the same mistakes. Lastly, our batteries stumped our group in the last few weeks of the project. After finishing the build and the wiring, we were baffled by our carts low performance and even lower battery life. We tried to rewire the cart and recharge the batteries but it did not help. In the end we found that the batteries we were using were broken and the replacement ones provided the performance and ride that we had been expecting.

I really enjoyed the scale of this project and the high level engineering it entailed. Working with motorized vehicles and metal was really interesting to me because all of the skills we used are very applicable. The HPV project was a staple of the engineering class. This electric kart project brought it to the next level. I'd love to do the project again because I know there's so much we can improve on.

Go-Kart Brakes

The braking system on our carts is absolutely essential. The axle on the back right wheel protrudes further than the bearing support. This is going to be our drive wheel. We will attach a sprocket to the axle and

Front Wheel Supports

Several weeks into our project, my group and I have completed the chassis and are working on the front wheel supports. This is a tricky one. The wheel supports must hold an axle that can spin while move horizontally in order to turn. Our teacher, Ben Varvil, suggested we use this design:

The nuts above and below the bearing are connected with a threaded rod. This rod stops about a centimeter above the bearing holder. This system allows the axle to turn in the bearing and the bearing holder to rotate forward and back.

3D Design

Before beginning construction on our soon-to-be winning high-speed racer, we have to build a model on our computer. This model will guide the production for the next several classes and make divvying up tasks more simple.

I created a model of our chassis on our CAD software (computer aided design), Solid Works, that allows us to see our ultimate goal. A cool feature of this program enables us to select certain pieces of the frame that need to be created and print out picture of that piece with dimensions and angles.

I found this really practical because I could print out a piece blueprint then give it to Yoel or Kyle and they could cut it out and have it ready for assembly without confusion or miss-communication.

Electric Go-Karts

In my high school engineering class, we have been given the challenge of constructing electric go karts. In groups of three, we are designing, manufacturing and testing ride-able carts. Our challenge is to create the lightest, fastest, and strongest cart, with given resources, before the end of the year. These resources include square metal tubing, cold-rolled steel rods, a plastic seat, ball-bearings, metal tubing to hold the bearings, and various parts from various scrapped children's bikes. Working in a group with Kyle Ashcraft and Yoel Campos, we will surely leave the other teams at the finish line