It's Springtime In Wisconsin.........
'nuff said?
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April 26, 2008
When We Say Cold, We Mean COLD!!!
Just before 7:00 a.m. the Miners pulled in at rural Sauk Prairie Airport and were greeted by snow flurries, which was both a shock and a delight to racers from the Universidad SImon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela (more on that later). Blankets, hats and gloves were at a premium as 40 mph winds and 36 degree temperatures had people huddled in their cars. Riders kept bundled until they hit the start line, their support crews are a pretty miserable bunch, and several bikes have been thrown our of control because of the gale-force cross winds. Despite all that Whittney Metcalf managed an initial run of 28+mph, and she wasn't pushing all that hard.
Word is that she just a fraction of a point behind the first-place female rider, with more chances to run this morning. Rumor also has it that S&T is also in 2nd place in the male sprints.
S&T had some real challenges to overcome last night as their designs, which sailed through west-coast races last week, now seem to be called into question. They made a few late-night changes to satisfy the judges, and now seem to be back on course hopefully fighting only the elements and the competition.
Oh, yeah, they are talking about even colder weather tomorrow, with rain and possible sleet, but at least little wind. Maybe if some team brings a human-powered Zamboni to the race, it'll help. Might even win
April 25, 2008
Human Powered Vehicle Events Ramp Up!
It's late, so we'll make this short.........
Judging for safety, design and aesthetics took place tonight at the 25th annual ASME-sponsored Human Powered Vehicle Competition in Madison, WI. While the results are not yet in, it seems that all the other teams have already voted. With their feet.
The minute Missouri S&T's St Patrick came through the door, all eyes locked on the sharpest and fastest-looking bike at the event, and teams swarmed around Andrew and the other designers/builders to see how the Miners did it. The mohawk-sporting dudes from University of Oklahoma were stunned to find out S&T's carbon-fiber fairing was laid up by hand, and not in a huge auto-clave. Kudos, guys!
April 24, 2008
Miners Overcome Flat Tire, Rally to Take 2nd Place
The Miners rallied from difficult sprint conditions and awkward timing issues to charge into 2nd place in the final standings.
In a race filled with lots of crashes (is that a familiar theme or what?) S&T was charging at race leader and powerhouse UC-Chico. Ben Kettler was making up 20 seconds on each 2.5 km lap, and freshman Evan Kluesner even made up 40 seconds on race-leader Chico, causing their strategist to get very, very nervous, and the Miners were on track (on, track, get it?) to sweep S&T into first place in the 65km showdown.
S&T's time keepers then had their turn to get nervous as on the final two laps Ben was suddenly well behind his previously blistering pace. Turns out he was riding the last 3 miles on a flat front tire! That stroke of misfortune cost the Miners the critical endurance race and the last chance to take first place. Ben had to choose between a pit-stop tire change or to aggressively soldier on, as either choice would have been equally tough. Regardless, we think he made the right choice.
Continue reading "Miners Overcome Flat Tire, Rally to Take 2nd Place" »
April 21, 2008
Nevada Weather Has It In For Miner Riders. Again.
Loyal readers of this blog, all three of you, probably remember the cold, damp, and windy conditions that thwarted SteaMiner's assault on the collegiate land speed record last fall. Mike Janaske of national champion Human Powered Vehicle Team tells us that Day 1 of the ASME/HPVC races experienced many of the same challenges. Could it be the state that is (supposedly) home to Area 51?
Anyway, high winds apparently played havoc with the electronic timing gates so race officials switched to the old reliable (?) back-up system. Anyone older than about three years old KNOWS that when you introduce change, arguments about fairness and interpretation are sure to break out. Run-up distances were changed, apparently in mid-event, and some teams were granted longer distances in which to gain speed before entering the critical time trap. Despite all the controversy and high winds Whittney took 3rd place in female sprint (36mph+) while Ben hung on to take 4th (38mph) in the male dash.
In the midst of all this controversy they somehow managed to run the utility bike (trike?) race but apparently when you crash across a speed bump at high speed (see the rear wheel off the ground) you bend the transmission mounts. That resulted in thrown, and ultimately broken, chains so the team had to withdraw from that event and end their plans to run the machine in the endurance race.
Stay tuned. We'll have more info later today on the all-important sprint races.
April 18, 2008
National Champs On The Road to Reno
No, not for the gambling, or even to meet the reality (?) TV stars of Reno 911!*
S&T's masters of human powered vehicle racing have nearly arrived in Reno, Nevada, site of the SAE West Coast HPV races, where starting tomorrow they will defend the first-ever national title ever claimed by ANY school.
This year could be tough for several reasons. Everyone wants to knock of the champs; some say it is easier to win the championship rather than to hold onto it, and if you you don't believe it, check out the Super Bowl victors of the past decade. Also, everyone's hero, Jerrod Bouchard, has retired from the team (something about graduating and getting a job, we hear), but veteran racer Ben Kettler is up to the task of filling Jerrod's racing shoes (shorts?).
In a new competition wrinkle SAE has added a utility bike contest to challenge teams to build a marketable, cargo-carrying bike for everyday use that can contend with potholes, speed bumps, parking places, and other life-threatening elements the rest of us face in our gas-guzzlers. The Miners have specialized in speed and endurance while dominating the racing for years, so this event calls for changing gears, literally and figuratively. They won't just use the Ute in the utility event, but also in the 1/4 mile sprint, and get this, the 40+ mile endurance race as well. Mike Janaske will be doing the honors on that machine. He's fast so we better tie the groceries down tight.
Last year's superstar rider Whittney (Snoopy) Metcalf will streak through the womens' sprint and anchor the all-important endurance race. Tim Mallet and Evan Kluessner will round out the 4-rider relay with the afore-mentioned Ben K.
As soon as they finish in Reno, they have to hustle back to campus, do laundry, make sure the bikes and riders are OK, then blast off to Madison WI next week for the East Coast competitions. Sounds like a 5,000-mile trip miles in about ten days.
October 03, 2007
Send your good karma west
Out here in the middle of Nevada, we just read that the Wendy's in Rolla has been named one of the top Wendy's in America. That got us missing home and feeling proud. Speaking of proud, we're out here with Jerrod and his UMR crew to chronicle their attempt to break the the collegiate human-powered land speed record (which you already know about if you're reading this, so this is getting kind of repetitive).
Click above button to play video | produced by Tom Shipley
P.S. Did we mention that it's pretty desolate out here?
P.P.S. Stay tuned for more of Bob's updates, which should be posted some time Pacific Time after tonight's action (or at least by some time tomorrow morning). We'll be here all week!
September 28, 2007
Quest for speed
Members of UMR's World Speed Challenge Team, an off-shoot of UMR's championship Human-Powered Vehicle Team, are leaving for Nevada today on a quest to break the collegiate land speed record. Videographer Tom Shipley is following them on a quest to make the best documentary since Roger and Me. Here's some early video, some of which will eventually find its way into Shipley's finished masterpiece:
September 04, 2007
Autoclave on a budget? How about Pancake Griddles and a Shop Vac?
Composite expert Craig George needed to build a windshield that matched the bullet-like shape of "StreaMiner", UMR's Land Speed Challenge vehicle. Lacking an expensive autoclave to heat and bend the clear acrylic sheets into the required curves, Craig designed and built his own forming machine around three aluminum pancake griddles.
Simply mounting the sheets an inch below the inverted heaters softened the material enough that it could be pressed and formed against a vacuum mold.
And the source for the suction power? A shop vac, of course!
August 29, 2007
Designs and publicity picking up speed
Jerrod Bouchard's upcoming attempt to break the collegiate land speed record is picking up speed, and not just on the road! UMR's four-member Land Speed Challenge Team will head to Battle Mountain, Nev., in October to break the 61.5 mph human powered vehicle speed record, and the word is getting around nearly as fast.
Jerrod and his team are featured today in Missouri's two largest newspapers. The official UMR news release is here. The resulting stories are here and here.
Jerrod is also featured on UMR's website today, and he will be the focal point of public interest at a Gateway International Raceway-hosted testing in mid-September. He is also scheduled to be featured soon on TechnoFiles, a science program that airs on KMST Public Radio 88.5 FM. Watch this blog for more details.
August 24, 2007
Campus celebrates Human Powered Vehicle champions!
Chancellor Jack Carney hosted a campus-wide reception for UMR's national champion Human Powered Vehicle Team and their "FlyBy" racer this week. Team members in their "Top Gun"-themed uniforms got to show off their recumbent bikes and trikes to faculty, staff, and most important, incoming students who may well become the group's future designers, builders and racers. Pictured here, Mike Janeske gets to have his cake and eat it too, as he sits in a low-slung trike with the team's 2007 trophies lining the walls.
August 06, 2007
To Battle Mountain with a bullet bike
FAST: Six straight East Coast championships for UMR's Human Powered Vehicle Team, and multiple runner-up positions in the highly competitive West Coast races.
FASTER: The first-ever combined national championship by a collegiate Human Powered Vehicle Team won by UMR in convincing fashion.
FASTEST: UMR's dominating cyclist Jerrod Bouchard (also the team's chief engineer) is raising the performance bar even higher.
Jerrod is leading the Human Powered Speed Challenge Team, an offshoot of UMR's dominating Human Powered Vehicle Team, in an attempt to shatter the collegiate human-powered land speed record of 61.5 mph. Bouchard, along with aerodynamics designer Andrew Sourk, team leader Craig George and composite specialist Matt Brown are nearing completion of a bullet-shaped bicycle that they believe will shatter the current collegiate speed record by 10 percent in October of this year.
Details after the jump.
July 10, 2007
Tired of Barry Bonds? Root for Jerrod to break a record
Jerrod Bouchard just dropped by the world headquarters of Experience This (the world headquarters is located in a Campus Support Facility office that used to be a cubicle) to give us an update on his attempt to break the human-powered speed record in October. As you might recall, Jerrod is a member of UMR's awesome Human-Powered Vehicle Team. Along with a few other team members, he's currently designing a new vehicle that, he hopes, will allow him to go faster than 62 mph. The record-breaking attempt will take place at Battle Mountain, Nev.
But first, the vehicle must be completed in time for Jerrod to get some serious training in. He's planning to take the bike to Boston soon to test it in a wind tunnel at MIT. Apparently he made some useful contacts last summer when he attended the MIT Design Summit.
Also, Jerrod would probably be too proud to ask for donations, but we're not proud at all and we think he deserves the support. It's going to cost a certain amount of money to finish the bike and get to Nevada and back. While some funds are available for the effort, it would be nice to get a few donations or small sponsorships. If you're interested, send us an email, leave a comment or contact the Student Design and Experiential Learning Center.
P.S. Barry Bonds and many cyclists participating in the Tour de France are probably on the juice along with all of those crazy professional wrestlers, but we're pretty sure Jerrod is clean.
June 01, 2007
Image of excellence
The winning photograph in the first semi-whenever Bob's Best Pic photo contest is "Human Power." This shot won in a landslide (two votes) over "The Hog-tanic" (zero votes) and "Down Goes Mizzou!" (zero votes). UMR's Human-Powered Vehicle Team won a national championship earlier this year. Later this year, Jerrod Bouchard (pictured above in front) will try to break the human-powered speed record. We'll have more details on that as plans unfold.
May 17, 2007
If you're not first, you're last
Did we mention that UMR's Human-Powered Vehicle Team is kind of a big deal? Yeah, we might have let it slip that they won a national championship or something. Sue us. We've got to get some mileage out of this thing. It's sort of like the time UMR won some kind of solar car race.
May 14, 2007
National champs!
UMR's Human-Powered Vehicle Team won the East Coast championship this weekend in Florida. Last month, the UMR team took first place in the West Coast competition. That, my friends, would make UMR the unified national champion in human-powered vehicle racing. More details to follow. In the meantime, check out Bob's Pics of this past weekend's action at the right of your screen. This is a new feature, and we think it will be a cool way to display multiple images of design team events that are happening at UMR and all over the country. Just click on the shot you like to see it bigger and to read the captions...
Update: Here's the official UMR news release.
May 09, 2007
Cool news
The Discovery Channel is going to do a story on UMR's Human-Powered Vehicle Team. A crew from Canada will be in Florida this weekend to chronicle UMR's attempt to win its sixth straight East Coast championship and its first-ever national championship. Meanwhile, another Canadian-based crew from the Discovery Channel will be in California this weekend to watch a UMR robot try to dig up moon dirt (it's probably fake moon dirt, but that's not the point).
These stories will run later in the summer. Watch this blog for details.
April 16, 2007
UMR team feels the need for human-powered speed
UMR has been winning the East Coast championship in human-powered vehicle racing for years -- five straight years to be exact. But the West Coast championship has always eluded them -- until now.