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This story will challenge your beliefs about what high school students, especially those who live below the poverty line and face alcohol and drug problems, are capable of. Autopia, a blog at Wired.com, reported on the story of a class project at the Automotive Design Studio at the DaLeSalle Education Center which serves as an alternative high school. The project was to design and build an electric car that weighed less than 1500 pounds, half the weight of 98% of most electric vehicles today.
The car the students had to work with was a damaged 2000 Lola Champ Car which was purchased for $2500 and repaired by students who had collision repair courses. One of the eye-catching traits of the car is its transparent body, which is made of a material by 3M which is the same that is used to shrink wrap windows. The student’s attached the film to the bottom wire of the body and then stretched it using a heat gun across the rest of a wire frame in a process that takes an hour. To date, the skin has shown no fatigue or damage after trial runs.
The transparent body replaced the fiberglass one that was originally used, but found to be too heavy. The new skin weighs only 39 pounds and costs $50. Other contributions to the car include low rolling resistance Bridgestone Ecopia EP100s tires and a sprocket-and-chain powertrain with an intermediate shaft in addition to 21 180 amp-hour lithium-ion batteries to power to the car’s electric motor.
The car the students had to work with was a damaged 2000 Lola Champ Car which was purchased for $2500 and repaired by students who had collision repair courses. One of the eye-catching traits of the car is its transparent body, which is made of a material by 3M which is the same that is used to shrink wrap windows. The student’s attached the film to the bottom wire of the body and then stretched it using a heat gun across the rest of a wire frame in a process that takes an hour. To date, the skin has shown no fatigue or damage after trial runs.
The transparent body replaced the fiberglass one that was originally used, but found to be too heavy. The new skin weighs only 39 pounds and costs $50. Other contributions to the car include low rolling resistance Bridgestone Ecopia EP100s tires and a sprocket-and-chain powertrain with an intermediate shaft in addition to 21 180 amp-hour lithium-ion batteries to power to the car’s electric motor.
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