Electrathon Race Team

What is Electrathon? The Purpose is to create and develop a sport that improves public understanding of electric vehicles through continuously improved vehicle and event rules. The competition objective is to drive electronically powered vehicles as far as possible in one hour on a closed loop course using limited electrical energy, while creating a forum where skill and ingenuity may be displayed, compared and tested, and improving public awareness and understanding of efficient alternative electric vehicles and related technology in an affordable sport defined by established rules in which groups and individuals can participate competitively and safely.

How did Harpursville get there? After seeing multiple presentations about Electrathon at various conferences Mr. Ramsden started requesting to use some grant funds towards purchasing electronic components and universal parts that would be required for this type of vehicle. Three years were spent acquiring equipment needed to build an Electrathon car and in fall of 2010 Mr. Ramsden’s Principles of Engineering class began making concepts sketches and foam board mockups of potential cars. Many revisions later, the class settled on playing it safe and converting a donated, chopped up go cart chassis. The build started in February 2011 with students breaking into teams and working on several systems including: body, electrical, chassis, drive train, steering, safety and the integration of each system and how they would interact with each other. After several weeks of work and some of the students giving up their spring break, the car ran for the first time on Monday before the race, during the run the drive axle slide out of position. That problem quickly corrected, the students tested again using a faster gear on Wednesday’s test run. A steering linkage failed and although the car would cruise at 30mph it was also found to be consuming too much of the battery to last the full hour. Wednesday night saw the linkage repaired and the slower gear installed only to shear a drive at the sprocket at the beginning of Thursday’s test, an emergency repair allowed the car to be driven for 50 minutes Thursday night before the battery gave out. Going into the race with a full battery charge, increasing the tire pressure and a driver change that allowed the removal of 10 lbs of ballast was what the students was hoped to be the adjustments need to reach a full one hour run.

On race day slow and steady was the name of the game for the Bumblefly, Tyler ran consistent and conservative 105 second laps (13.7 mph) on the .4 mile course and the car showed no signs of fading after the driver change from Tyler to Dillon. Dillon went about things more aggressively, confident that the early conservation would leave enough battery to pick up the pace to the tune of 100 second laps (14.4 mph). The team then had its first setback of the day. A stop and go pit stop to inspect a hot smell to make sure the electronics where ok (The car he was following had started smoking and was melting the plastic bodywork). Two laps later, at 44 at minutes, he radioed in that the steering was deteriorating, drag increasing, and he was pulling in for inspection. After another two laps the car was pulled in to protect the motor and batteries from damage as the conditions worsened. Back home in the lab it was found that a wheel bearing failed. Had the car finished at the pace it was running, 34 laps was the anticipated result, which would have been good for 3^rd in Novice and 10^th overall. To be fair, several cars were in and out of the pits with issues of their own and durability is a part of the game and we stayed close to them without their speed because of those issues.

The students of the class hope to fix and improve this car to compete in October at Oswego Speedway and also hope find sponsorships to build a new car with all the knowledge they learned from this experience. (Many of the cars that they competed against had received sponsorships from companies like National Grid, Carrier and Constellation Energy amongst much smaller sponsorships)

The 2011 NY Electrathon Challenge at The Glen was a huge success with 150+ students (12 from Harpursville) participated in the event in front of 500+ spectators at Watkins Glen International Speedway. How many high school students can say: "I raced at Watkins Glen"?