A team of Saskatchewan Polytechnic students won first place in their category at an eco-car competition.
The team entered their urban concept car in the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas Challenge, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on April 16.
Driver Linden Herperger, who has competed for a few years, said it was an exciting experience.
“Having to invest in so many years and come up with the first it's definitely exciting to see your hard work pay off. A lot of late nights a lot of just sitting thinking, in the shower or laying in bed trying to kind of figure out how you're going to solve that next problem,” he said.
“It's got all your standard looking indicators, headlights, taillights, horn, wiper,” Herperger said, adding the competition expectation was the entry be representative of a real car.
The car used hockey sticks in frames, and had a 35cc ice auger engine with a custom fuel injection system and a steering wheel made of flax fibre, according to the Sask. Polytech website.
The body was made with 3D printed recyclable materials, and the special filament was used with a temperature-triggered, active foaming technology that reduced the weight to about a third of a regular 3D printed part, the website said. A two-litre pop bottle was used to pressurize the fuel system.
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Herperger said the competition started with solo runs.
“Then if you advance and do well enough you're invited to participate in the actual race grid starts. And so we were lucky enough to get a qualifying number. We were first placed in the mileage competition, which is super exciting.”
The vehicle was an upgrade from last year’s entry.
“We needed a place to mount the steering wheel. And instead of kind of running some beams in from the side, we figured, hey, we need rollover protection. We can run a goalie stick up the center kind of like a halo and the depth of inspiration from that worked out really well for everything we needed.”
The team is the only Canadian one to go on to the Shell Eco-Marathon Drivers’ World Championship Grand Finale in India this October, according to the Sask. Polytech website.
“We've got a couple of months to thrash on the cars and get a couple of last-minute things buttoned up,” Herperger said.
“It's a good time to kind of go back to the drawing board on a couple of things, do some design and engineering work.”
Herperger said no matter what happens in October, getting this far in the competition has been worthwhile.
“It's a collaborative environment. You don't really hide much of what we're doing. So it's cool to be able to share ideas with other teams.”
