The quiet Onedia High School of New York has grabbed headlines across the nation with five students of the school’s enterprising and engineering wing, building a one seater electric car from scratch. This tiny shiny black capsule like car, with racing stripes on its sides, available in the school’s orange and blue colors. Not only does this car look sleek and cool, it can move too, with its builders hoping to participate and win races in it. As of now, this car that runs on a DC electric motor and needs a four hours recharge, can comfortably fly at about 40 mph.
School seniors William Altwal, Sean Butler, Jimm Davis, Nathan Atkinson and Kyle Armstrong build this car from scratch over a year, using the three basic components namely a battery, an electric motor and a motor controller. Created as a larger part of their engineering, design and development class, the car has absolutely no transmission, but boasts of a simple and basic direct drive from the motor head to the rear wheel. However, to race this car, as the students eventually plan to, they will need to set up various gear ratios depending on the track they need race at.
Their mentor on the project, David Wright, also the schools Technology Teacher said that this project was not something given to them; in fact it was something they chose to do on their own initiative. Proud of their achievements Wright explains, what the project means to the school, “It’s about showing students what’s possible. I think it also shows them the possibilities of green technology and we’re not that far from that. Working on big projects like this helps them in the next step. They’re not afraid to be a leader in college or for any other big project to step up to the plate and take it on.
However, it was not all a cake walk, as securing funding for their project turned out as difficult as actually building it. In the end, sponsorships from local companies, some fundraising by the students and a grant from the National Grid helped them realize their dream. Even the design and construction of the car proved challenging, as the students either had to customize available car parts like the chassis motor mount and roll cage or build them from scratch.
The school plans to continue the project for their upcoming senior batch, hoping that they make improvements to the car, taking this OHS legacy forward and actually race their car in the New York Electrathon at Oswego Speedway.
Via: Dispatch
