Seven mechanical engineering students ranging from second to fourth years traveled to Boise, Idaho, to represent Cal Poly at the ASME e-Human Powered Vehicles Challenge.
They competed in a drag race, an endurance race and a design competition against eight other universities from across the West Coast.
Cal Poly has a long-standing history of attending this competition for the past several decades, as the oldest Human Powered Vehicles team in the U.S.
The club has had difficulty with low membership since the COVID-19 Pandemic and has not been able to attend a competition since 2019, when they set the U.S. collegiate men’s top speed record for human power.
For the club’s first return to competition, the team put in months of work on the design and fabrication of their vehicle, a fully faired electric assisted trike. The team placed second in the drag race and third place in the design competition.
This competition has brought Cal Poly back onto the competitive human power engineering scene after a multiyear hiatus. The team is already planning for and looking forward to next year’s project and competition!
Next year, the club aims to participate in the Battle Mountain competition in Nevada, an event that demands an even more specialized vehicle capable of reaching speeds nearing 70 miles an hour, funds permitting. Designing such a vehicle will give students in our team the opportunity to further their vehicle dynamics knowledge, pursue more ergonomic and compact positioning of both rider and drivetrain components and continue to refine the fairing design and manufacturing practices.
