My first vehicle
My first Vehicle - Go Kart
It was first year of B.Tech, I was very much fascinated with robots from my early age. One of the major reasons i joined in Sreenidhi was because of THE ROBOTICS CLUB. I was an average student back then (i am still pretty much the same), I wasted my two years of intermediate doing all sort of stupid things which i was not supposed to, and as expected didn't get any good marks in TS EAMCET (I didn't even check my mains marks, i was so damn sure that i would have got below 30 marks). I got 25,000 rank in TS EAMCET. I had some pretty bad years after my 10th ( those circumstances need another chapter) and this rough and bitter experiences inside me wanted to do something big, I had no idea whatsoever regarding other branches, i didn't even knew there was an ECE branch in B.Tech. During 12th i used to argue with everyone and bitch about the education, how it was rotting the young innovative brains, i didn't like the idea of one dimensional approach of the inter colleges, people are tortured to get good marks in weekly tests, there was no practical approach to concepts.
My blog post is slightly getting side tracked. Any ways the point i want to make is my life sucked for 3 years during my intermediate ( About 3rd year i will tell in that other chapter). I was out of plus 2 with zero knowledge about the world outside (thanks to legendary institutions) and completely no clue about my career, and most of all i didn't have any command on my subjects that i learned for 2 years. Only thing i was good from my young age was to understand different mechanisms, and only related branch to this was mechanical stream, so i decided to join this branch " The Mother of Engineering".
I was pretty clear with my decision to join mechanical engineering, but the question was where?. My dad is always supportive with my decisions, we took a decision to join in management quota in a good college, where i could get all the amenities which will nourish my dreams and finally i would flourish with flying colours.
My blog post is slightly getting side tracked. Any ways the point i want to make is my life sucked for 3 years during my intermediate ( About 3rd year i will tell in that other chapter). I was out of plus 2 with zero knowledge about the world outside (thanks to legendary institutions) and completely no clue about my career, and most of all i didn't have any command on my subjects that i learned for 2 years. Only thing i was good from my young age was to understand different mechanisms, and only related branch to this was mechanical stream, so i decided to join this branch " The Mother of Engineering".
I was pretty clear with my decision to join mechanical engineering, but the question was where?. My dad is always supportive with my decisions, we took a decision to join in management quota in a good college, where i could get all the amenities which will nourish my dreams and finally i would flourish with flying colours.
We started to look into options, i was asking my friends who all were already into engineering 2nd year. During my search i came to know that one of my friends was in Sreenidhi Institute, HYD. He was my classmate till 9th, he was in mechanical branch as well. I met him and discussed with him regarding college, he told about the student clubs, "The Robotics Club" after listening to that, i was like i need to join this college. We have bought a seat in management quota. During my 1st year, students representing different clubs came to classes for announcements about club recruitments. I have never seen recruitments before, so i went to all the open sessions (Thats what they are called, it is a session where they introduce about their club, why it is greater than other clubs, what are its achievements and all sort of advertisement stuff to lure young people in). Each club has its own recruitment process, just like a job interview it has many tests and all. Every recruitment process has incubation period where people are taught some basics and are tested on those areas, to check how serious the student was. All the classes are taught by students, tests are designed and conducted by students, its like there is is a whole new organisation within the Sreenidhi organisation, its like inception.
But student needs to register for the clubs incubation process. I have paid registration fees for all the clubs but have decided to stick with two clubs mainly, TRC and SAE. TRC is The Robotics Club and SAE is "Society of Automotive Engineers" SAE was a big organisation, our college had a club from that people are registered under SAEINDIA, Our club is called SAEINDIA-SNIST. During this phase i was actively participating in both the clubs, i had learned many new things which I would have never known at all if I hadn't joined these clubs. But later it became difficult to continue in both the clubs. The work became intensive and we had less time. I was recruited into both the clubs, i was given separate tasks. In SAE club, from here on we will call it R&D (our club room is the college's old R&D, it was called R&D since 2009 it still continues to be called as R&D) i was selected to be a part of 25 member team, where we are supposed to build a Go- Kart for a student competition. The name of the competition was Sieger Pro Karting Championship, it was conducted in Aditya Engineering college, Kakinada. It was my first project, i was so excited and was so happy. We were making a vehicle, i couldn't believe that.
link for the SPKC Season 1 video:- spkc season 1 promo video
During summer holidays after my intermediate, me and my family went on vacation to Thirupathi, we stayed in a 3 star resort, i don't remember the name, but it had water slides along with Go-Karting, that was my first encounter with a Go-Kart (people who are judging, i was from rural area. my schooling was in karimnagar. So please...) I was wonderstruck with the kart. I drove it, for 5 laps, it was hard to steer but i enjoyed it a lot. After returning home, i called my friends and showed them the pictures of the Go-Kart. I said "i want to built this". They had no idea, Pranay asked "what you want for that?". I said i need "an engine!", he searched and finally came to me with an option. He knew a mechanic, who had RX100 and wanted to sell it at Rs.3000/-. I was like ok lets do it, i didn't know about torque a vehicles needs in order to move, braking system, steering system, i dint even know how to fix that engine after taking it out. But back then i didn't even know that these are all necessary requirements for fabricating Go-Kart. I was planning to make kart with auto wheels which are smaller than bike wheels, I even didn't have a chassis. In fact i didn't even knew it was called a chassis. But the whole idea was dropped because, i thought the only problem was to take permission from government to run that vehicle on road. When i started to work on Go-Kart project, for SPKC with my team in R&D, I slowly learned many things that are required to make a vehicle. Later when i realised how lame my idea was to build a Go-Kart on my own without knowing anything about it. But this curiousness has helped me learn many things. If i didn't had an idea to build a Go-Kart, i wouldn't have joined SAE at the first place.
But student needs to register for the clubs incubation process. I have paid registration fees for all the clubs but have decided to stick with two clubs mainly, TRC and SAE. TRC is The Robotics Club and SAE is "Society of Automotive Engineers" SAE was a big organisation, our college had a club from that people are registered under SAEINDIA, Our club is called SAEINDIA-SNIST. During this phase i was actively participating in both the clubs, i had learned many new things which I would have never known at all if I hadn't joined these clubs. But later it became difficult to continue in both the clubs. The work became intensive and we had less time. I was recruited into both the clubs, i was given separate tasks. In SAE club, from here on we will call it R&D (our club room is the college's old R&D, it was called R&D since 2009 it still continues to be called as R&D) i was selected to be a part of 25 member team, where we are supposed to build a Go- Kart for a student competition. The name of the competition was Sieger Pro Karting Championship, it was conducted in Aditya Engineering college, Kakinada. It was my first project, i was so excited and was so happy. We were making a vehicle, i couldn't believe that.
link for the SPKC Season 1 video:- spkc season 1 promo video
During summer holidays after my intermediate, me and my family went on vacation to Thirupathi, we stayed in a 3 star resort, i don't remember the name, but it had water slides along with Go-Karting, that was my first encounter with a Go-Kart (people who are judging, i was from rural area. my schooling was in karimnagar. So please...) I was wonderstruck with the kart. I drove it, for 5 laps, it was hard to steer but i enjoyed it a lot. After returning home, i called my friends and showed them the pictures of the Go-Kart. I said "i want to built this". They had no idea, Pranay asked "what you want for that?". I said i need "an engine!", he searched and finally came to me with an option. He knew a mechanic, who had RX100 and wanted to sell it at Rs.3000/-. I was like ok lets do it, i didn't know about torque a vehicles needs in order to move, braking system, steering system, i dint even know how to fix that engine after taking it out. But back then i didn't even know that these are all necessary requirements for fabricating Go-Kart. I was planning to make kart with auto wheels which are smaller than bike wheels, I even didn't have a chassis. In fact i didn't even knew it was called a chassis. But the whole idea was dropped because, i thought the only problem was to take permission from government to run that vehicle on road. When i started to work on Go-Kart project, for SPKC with my team in R&D, I slowly learned many things that are required to make a vehicle. Later when i realised how lame my idea was to build a Go-Kart on my own without knowing anything about it. But this curiousness has helped me learn many things. If i didn't had an idea to build a Go-Kart, i wouldn't have joined SAE at the first place.
We have worked for more than 6 months on designing, iterating our design and modelling it. We have finally fabricated a robust Go-Kart and went to competition. While travelling to the competition i had a terrible experience, but my beloved team members and seniors have supported me. I was very lucky to have such adorable seniors. We put everything in to making a sound vehicle with good engineering practices. We tested it for several days before taking it to competition and rectified some errors in vehicle dynamics. From prototyping to end product we have carefully planned and executed the tasks to meet deadlines.
This image here is a the vehicle during fabrication stage, completed the welding of the chassis and wheels attached. It was now time to add engine and other systems in to the vehicle. The main frame was made from AISI 1018 1 inch and 1.6 mm thickness pipes and the welding was ARC. We have used manual bending for the bends and Steering geometry was Ackerman. We have done analysis on each and every part of the vehicle. Our wheel hubs were aluminium and the Elliots were EN-8, shaft was EN-24. We used hydraulic braking system for the kart and used single piston Master cylinder along with 160mm disk. We used standard OEM calliper for shine bike as our calliper.
This picture on the right shows the bumpers attached to the main frame. These were mild steel pipes with 1 inch diameter. These are weak points in the vehicle. During impact the bumpers absorb most of the load and deform or break in order to avoid any damage to driver.
In the last pic the complete vehicle with body works is shown. It is now completely finished with little bit of paint job needed to be done along with some electrical wiring.
We have selected Ashok as our driver, he has done extensive practice on Go-Kart during testing, he was ready to race with the beast. During the race driver must wear all the safety equipment, driver suit, gloves, balaclava, neck rest, socks, Driver shoe, Helmet. All the driver safety equipment must be, fire resistant, SFI rated and must meet all the safety norms as per the rule book. Our team kart number is 08. Here is a pic of the driver and the vehicle.
This image here is a the vehicle during fabrication stage, completed the welding of the chassis and wheels attached. It was now time to add engine and other systems in to the vehicle. The main frame was made from AISI 1018 1 inch and 1.6 mm thickness pipes and the welding was ARC. We have used manual bending for the bends and Steering geometry was Ackerman. We have done analysis on each and every part of the vehicle. Our wheel hubs were aluminium and the Elliots were EN-8, shaft was EN-24. We used hydraulic braking system for the kart and used single piston Master cylinder along with 160mm disk. We used standard OEM calliper for shine bike as our calliper.
We have selected Ashok as our driver, he has done extensive practice on Go-Kart during testing, he was ready to race with the beast. During the race driver must wear all the safety equipment, driver suit, gloves, balaclava, neck rest, socks, Driver shoe, Helmet. All the driver safety equipment must be, fire resistant, SFI rated and must meet all the safety norms as per the rule book. Our team kart number is 08. Here is a pic of the driver and the vehicle.
1) Static Events 2) Dynamic Events
Again these are having rounds in each, But there are certain qualifying rounds in order for the vehicle to be allowed to race in the event. First and fore most is Technical Inspection, in this the vehicle is assessed according to the given rule book. There are judges who are called from various companies of automobiles for the assessment of the events. Judges will check the vehicle and assess whether it is meeting all the points mentioned in the rule book. They will then judge whether the vehicle is good enough to compete in the race. After giving marks they will give a TI sticker that will officially make our kart a racing Go-Kart. Next the teams will proceed to Brake test, Braking is most important in a moving vehicle to avoid accidents. So before allowing the Kart in to any dynamic events first it should qualify the brake test. We have qualified in the first attempt and we were given qualifying sticker for brake test.
This was Skid pad test, In this round, there is a figure of 8, vehicle must complete given pattern. The karts must finish this round in order to participate in next dynamic rounds. This test will ensure the steering system of kart and also will show the handling capacity of the driver.
After completing all the qualifying rounds, we were now eligible to participate in all the static and dynamic events. We have done very well in each and every round. We have secure places as follows in each round.
EVENT NAME
|
RANK
|
MARKS
|
DESIGN INSPECTION
|
1
|
51
|
BUILD QUALITY
|
2
|
59
|
BUSSINESS PLAN PRESENTATION
|
1
|
39
|
COST EVALUATION
|
2
|
42
|
WEIGHT TEST
|
5
|
51.596
|
INNOVATION
|
3
|
38
|
ACCELERATION TEST
|
2
|
71.91
|
AUTO CROSS
|
13
|
20.13
|
SLEDGE PULL
|
3
|
72.86
|
ENDURANCE
|
8
|
243.94
|
OVERALL
|
1
|
684.435 (with penalty of 5 points)
|
For complete details of the result please visit below link.
SPKC results for season 1 pdf link
During endurace event on Day 3
After the endurance
After a long 3 day event, finally we have come out with many prizes and appreciations for our work. We have sustained many problems during fabrication, we have encountered new problems and solved them. For the first time we have created a Go-Kart vehicle and we won overall championship. We could not believe at first but when we heard our name called out, we shouted like retards. Endless joy and cheer followed us on to stage. We have shouted till our voices went out. It was a great achievement for us. We have made a product that performed well, this will surely make an engineer really proud.
We had so much fun during our work and our hard work paid off when we have won Best design award, Best Business plan award and overall championship in the event. We have spent many nights working and slept in the college during cold nights. We had a aspiration and that made us stick together till the end. We have faced the consequences together, and had cherished the fruits together. I would really like to thank my captain
D.Raviteja , My beloved seniors Srinath, Suraj, Santhosh, Srinivas, Ashok, Sushmith, Murthy and all my fellow teammates for making this project a memorable one. From the day i joined SAEINDIA-SNIST i have learned a lot and i am always thankful to the club.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the valuable information sir, whenever we meet you, we also have a great knowledge transfer.
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