Personalised travel
Many people still commute to work by car in which the driver is the only passenger. Other options can be hard to access, if you live too far away from work to walk, biking and motorbiking are too cold and wet for your liking, or you don't live handy to a bus route. But what if a tiny car for one person was available?
William Early is one of the Technicians in our EPICentre workshop facility supporting student project work across many disciplines here at Otago Polytechnic. In late 2019 he began to think about what an electric vehicle for one person might look like. He started working with a few students to design and produce the body of the vehicle, a composite shell, to ignite the imaginations of others.
This year the electric vehicle project has been embedded in the Bachelor of Engineering Technologies programme. It has been giving students opportunities to problem solve, to work within constraints, to work on an interdisciplinary project, and to apply their classroom learning. Teams of students have been working on the clear canopy and door, the in-hub motor, the battery management system, rear and front suspension, steering, stabilisers, parking stand, lighting and seating. Industry support is appreciated. The vehicle is still very much a work in progress with much yet to be done by next year's students, in Engineering Technologies and other disciplines.