Car Construction Project Fuels Students Design, Engineering Skills

University of Cincinnati students are on track in their drive to disassemble a General Motors EV1 (electric vehicle 1) car from 1997 and re-engineer, reassemble and redesign it. When the project’s entirely complete within a couple of years, future engineering and design students will get to tool around campus in the new vehicle.

The project is the brainchild of

Brigid O’Kane

, associate professor of design in UC’s

top-ranked

College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), who also heads the  college’s

Transportation Track

. Working with O’Kane on the project is Sam Anand, professor of engineering. The effort brings together both industrial design students from

DAAP

and mechanical engineering students from the

College of Engineering

.

“This isn’t a project where designers toss a sketch ‘over the wall’ for engineers to execute,” said Kevin Klueber, a senior mechanical engineering student. “We all have to be closely involved in this project. It takes a lot of time, and it’s a very thoughtful process. If it weren’t, it would never work.”

The design and engineering students have been experimenting on this project for more than a quarter now and will continue into spring quarter.

At this point, in the project’s Sander Annex workshop, the EV1 is completely disassembled except for the car’s frame and windshields. The students have modeled all the major  components and have been testing how these parts – as well as updated technology – might fit into a new design.

The final appearance of the vehicle is still something of a question mark. Two industrial design students – Alex Walters and Bobby Deddens – have worked two quarters on experimental designs for the car.

One idea is Deddens’ “dragster bike” vehicle. “It’s for the thrill-seeking person. I’d envision in-wheel electric motors powered by a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a traditional combustion engine. It’s a dragster bike with the stability of a car. It could fit two people maximum.”

Because of the complexity of that design, it’s likely that the final form of the car will be more like the design envisioned by Walters. His design, a bit more traditional in appearance, could be powered by methane to charge the electric motor. “Even E100 ethanol could be used,” explained Walters.

At the end of spring quarter, all the students involved in the genesis of this project will graduate. They will, however, leave behind very detailed documents and specifications for later groups of design and engineering students to continue the work.

Explained Klueber, “We have to turn in a detailed document of the process we used in disassembling the car, how we manufactured the models for these parts and how they are connected in terms of function and in terms of the current design type we’re considering. Future design and engineering students will have a lot to work with. So much basic work has been done for them.”

Part of the reason the students have been able to make so much progress is that almost all of them already have some experience working for automotive companies thanks to UC’s celebrated cooperative education program. The project's students are:

• Melissa Brown, engineering senior, co-opped with Toyota Motor Corp. and will go to work for the firm full time when she graduates.
• Josh Ciminello, engineering senior, co-opped with Toyota Motor Corp.
• Bobby Deddens, design senior, co-opped at Ford Motor Co.
• Kevin Klueber, engineering senior, had three co-ops with Mitsubishi Motors.
• T.J. Stengel, engineering senior, is currently interviewing with car companies.
• Alex Walters, design senior, co-opped at General Motors, Inc.