It looked like a bike, traveling
down Alexander Lane. But
then you heard a sound like a steam engine. And you noticed the rider, Paul Seiffert
'06, had his feet off the pedals.
The “PB5K,” a bike that used
compressed air to drive pistons attached to the pedals, took the title on
Friday in the “(Almost) No Rules Soap Box Derby” with a ride of 354 feet. And
it could have gone farther, according to Prof. Bill Keat.
The competition was part of the
final design project in Keat's course, ESC020 — “Rigid Body Mechanics.” The
goal was to design a vehicle powered exclusively by stored potential energy
that can travel over distance.
Among the few rules was that power
must be stored and stationary at the start of the race. That leaves out a
number of power sources – human, gas engine and nuclear, among others – Keat cautioned
his students.
“This was a goofy design program,
but it had a purpose,” Keat said. “I cracked up when I saw the designs.”
Most machines used a more
common source of energy: bungie cords. “24 Karat,” a bungie-powered tricycle, was
named for the kid's tricycle that gave its front assembly to the project. Another
contraption, with construction that made it resemble the Little Rascal's
playhouse, featured an eight-foot tower that held the bungies. Keat, ever
mindful of safety, asked the team to install a screen and some boards to protect
the driver in case of a bungie mishap.
The team that built “PB5K” started
their project with a pneumatic impact wrench. Problem was, simply, it didn't
deliver enough angular velocity. Undaunted, team members made a seven hour road
trip to Dayton, N.J., on Thursday to get pistons for their updated design.
“There was huge commitment to this
project,” Keat observed.
Members of the winning team, all juniors,
were Seiffert, Jessica Miron, Drew Moyer, Justin Stroud, Nicholas Steiner, Evan
Gauzie and Tim Nonna.
Next up for Keat's students: a
round of golf. Final design projects in his “Kinematics” course (a study of
linkages, the professor explains) call for students to design a
remote-contolled machine that can play 18 holes of miniature golf. Against Keat's
five-year-old daughter, Joy. “While I haven't seen these machines fully operational,”
Keat said, “I like her chances.”