Old Red New Red, one of the most popular events of E-Week, is a gala put on by the EUS, where engineering alumni and students are able to engage each other in a social setting. This year was particularly special for the Supermileage team as some of the alum that built the Wally Wagon gave a talk. For those of you who don’t know, the Wally Wagon was essentially the reason that Supermileage was born. Here is  a link to the Wally Wagon’s Wikipedia page.

http://heustory.apsc.ubc.ca/wiki/index.php/Urban_Vehicle_Design_Competition

The Wally Wagon actually made an appearance at Old Red New Red as one of the main attractions, sitting beside the current Supermileage car, the Argo. This was a really cool experience as Old Reds who built the Wally Wagon were asking about the Argo, and current team members were interested in the Wally Wagon. A great night was had by all!

This event was a milestone for the Argo as it was the first time this year that we had a rolling vehicle with working lights. As well, the engine tuning is coming along nicely, putting us in a good position for this year’s competition.

This is how we roll

Oh no! Where did the blogs go? (Part the first)

It’s what’s been on your mind for the last two weeks. Restlessly you’ve been checking and rechecking the Superblog II, and time and time again you’ve been disappointed. Why is this happening! I hear you cry; where are our updates as the day of competition draws steadily and steadily closer?!

Our bad. Due to a miscommunication I thought Chris was writing and he assumed the same of me. But the wires are no longer crossed! And to make up for it we’re going to do two posts this week! That’s right, two weeks worth of supermileage fun condensed into one seven day stretch! If we’re feeling really gung-ho we may even do three (but you shouldn’t hold your breath)!

So some interesting stuff has been happening, and I’m going to need two posts to detail it all anyway. Maybe I’ll let Chris do the second one (I’ll make sure he knows he’s doing it though).

First thing you need to know: here at UBC we have special ‘weeks’ for every faculty. During these weeks each faculty has fun activities they put on;  for example the Arts faculty this year covered the engineering club house in purple balloons and painted our cairn purple (we have a big E in front of one of the engineering buildings, google UBC cairn to see what I’m talking about). I’m sure they did some other stuff too, and I’m sure they had a great time doing it! However, there is one week that’s always at the back of every student’s mind. It begins with a boat-race and ends with a ball. That’s right: E-week. I’m probably biased, but E-week is by far the best of the faculty weeks. This year we had:

-dodgeball (in the rain because we’re hardcore)!

-chariot races!

The first years put together a pretty fantastic chariot. Way to go you crazy kids!

 

-e-ball soccer!

Is the ball huge or are the students tiny? Perhaps it's a mixture of both...

-a fooseball tournament (some of those mech engineers are ridiculously good. Shouldn’t they be busy studying advanced thermofluid variable hyper-dimensional analysis or something?)!

-Old-Red New-Red!

An intriguing glimpse into Old-Red New-Red. Definitely worth checking back for on Friday.

Old-Red New-Red? What on earth is that? I’ll say this much: it’s full of interesting people, delicious (and more importantly free) food, and fantastic stories that could only happen in an inspirational movie.

But we’re engineers: we make the imagined reality.

Also the Supermileage team was a main feature this year!

Come on back in a couple of days and we’ll go into all the juicy details of Old-Red New-Red and the Supermileage Team’s part in the event!

 

Groovin on a Saturday afternoon

First of all I would like to congratulate all our mech 2′s for surviving their design course. Now you can spend all your free time with the Supermileage Team! Yeah!

A couple of our mech 2's looking pleased to be done their design course. If only they knew what was in store for them next...

We had a stroke of luck this week: the dyno used for tuning the engine that we thought was broken wasn’t broken at all! We have the engine team fiddling with it, but the indications are good that we can use that bad boy to tune up the engine.

They wouldn't tell me exactly what they were doing with the dyno, but I assume it was industrious.

We’re ordering team t-shirts today! Admin extrodinare Nancy has designed some sleek polos and is putting in the order today. As if we didn’t look awesome enough without t-shirts on!

Unfortunately the team behind designing the next generation Argo body are slightly behind schedule. They were going to start fluid drag models, but then they took an aero to the knee.

Several members of the design squad before the 'incident'

Memetastic!

Everything is falling into place…

Oh man is there a lot to report today….

Nam Gi inspects the chassis, which is actually starting to look like a real vehicle

In a whirlwind of circuitry, rubber, and raw horsepower the team has made some massive headway into getting the Argo in running order.
The goods (in no particular order):

We’ve got snazzy new  LED taillights and signal lights that will blind

the competition with their radiant radiance!

We have a winning door design! It’s surprisingly difficult to get out of the Argo in under ten seconds (as per the rules), but with this new design there will be seconds to spare to make a sandwich or something!

The engine is a go! The raw power of 2.1 horses (or 1.5 bad tempered bulls) will soon be raging beneath the Argo’s carbon fibre hood and I’m expecting much swooning of the audience as we rip up the track down in Texas.

Engine lead Neil (left) and Kevan bring the engine to life. Congratulations, its a 50cc!

Ever since chassis lead Ryan was defeated by the Mysterious Yellow Racer it’s as if a flame of determination has been lit within him, and it looks like it’s catching. The chassis team have:
-Installed the firewall (to separate driver Katlin from the engine)!
-Installed the steering system!
-Designed a windshield wiper rig (and they’re installing it too)!
-Installed the wheels!

Chassis lead Ryan and yours truly. We never did discover the identity of the Mysterious Yellow Racer...

These guys are on metaphorical fire! The best kind of fire to be on!

SuperM takes to the racetrack

Happy new year everyone! Our team is back from the winter break with a shiny new set of resolutions:

1. Have the Argo fully functioning by the end of February
2. Break 300mpg
3. Become loved by all woodland critters be they large or small*
4. Live long and prosper

 

*except for squirrels. Those guys are bad news.

Jonathan flashes a 'v' for victory prior to the race. The others look skeptical.

To build up the resolve necessary for our list, we embarked on a team-building/driver training escapade to the go-carting track. After several grueling rounds, a couple of minor collisions, and a stirring come-from-behind-to-almost-win-but-in-the-end-misjudge-the-corner-and-spin-out, Mr/ Jonathan Leung came out as supreme victor. Well done Jonathan! But we must remember, it’s not whether you win or lose that’s important, but the fact that Captain Connor beat Chris. Nice one Captain Connor.

Chasis lead Ryan battles the mysterious Yellow Racer

Brimming with new found drive from our drive, we’re chomping at the bit to knock this Shell Eco-marathon out of the park.

Can we do it? Do we have it in us to become more awesome, statuesque and well-dressed than we were last year? Will squirrels ruin my valentines day plans again??

It’s going to be an exciting year. I hope 2012 is ready for us.

 

The Holidays Are Here!

Sorry for the large gap between posts. With the end of the semester comes final exams, and with final exams comes studying, all nighters, enough caffeine to jitter a horse (or two small ponies), and shirking of blogging duties; but fear not gentle readers, you have not been forgotten. We still love you.
Unfortunately, with all these final exams, the Argo has not had a lot of work done on it over the past couple of weeks. That being said, we would like to thank those dedicated people who did put in the time to work on the Argo while the rest of us were cramming for exams

On another note, I am sorry that there are no pictures to go along with thise post…unless you want to see pictures of me (Chris) skiing at Whitler.
From all of the Supermilers, we wish you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  
Lots of love, Chris and Jake xxxx

The Engineers of Movember

Welcome Engineers of Tomorrow (and future Awesome Supermileage Team Members)

We had a fun time this weekend! It was the UBC engineering open house, so Team Supermileage set up a booth and got to talk to all the potential engineering students from high-schools around town. It felt a bit like a show and shine, people checking out the Argo, commenting on its smooth shell (which was all we actually had on display, we’re doing work on the engine and chassis right now), asking the age old question ‘nice ride, how fast does it go?’ We explained that it’s not how fast you reach your destination, but how fuel efficient you can make the journey that counts. Needless to say they were impressed. They were even more impressed to hear that we make the entire vehicle on site in the Rusty Hut. Perhaps we’ll see some of them again next year when we build our new model!

Good news on the build side of things: we’ve got our engine up and running! This is particularly exciting because this was one of the biggest challenges we had last year was getting the EFI to function, and in the end we had to do without. So this year our fuel efficiency should improve pretty drastically which is rather wonderful considering our modus opperendei is getting the most bang for our fuel buck. Good job engine team! You are the recipient of this weeks ‘Jake’s Gold Star of Doing Awesome.

On a somewhat more serious note, as some of you may already know, the Engineers at UBC are strong supporters in the fight against prostate cancer and participate in fundraising for cancer research through something called Movember. Movermber stands for mustache November, during which, participants grow mustaches and collect donations. That being said, a number of Supermilers grew some impressive (and not so real) mustaches. Who do you think has the best one?

Chris and Jake xoxo

Nick must have stolen the handlebars off of my Harley....and put them on his face.

Sebastian and his sexy stache

Tungesh knows what the ladies like

The fine gentlemen of Movember

Probably the best looking ladies with mustaches you will ever lay your eyes on.

The First Snowfall

The first snow of the year means it’s officially time to start playing holiday type feel good music. Don’t be put down by Grinches trying to cramp your seasonal groove, just turn that sound system up to 11 and get down, winter style.

On that note (or even a completely unrelated one) we are making solid progress on the building of our car, the Argo. Chris and Nam-Gi have put together a pair of much more effective brake and acceleration pedals (which incorporate my favorite kind of spring: the torsional kind);

The 'brake' pedal and its creator

we also have a brand new windshield wiper that we’re all very excited about, and Tungesh and Michael are installing it right on the front of the Argo where everyone can see it. Our aerodynamics division also has its hands full right now. They are installing carbon fiber reinforcements to the body of the car, while also fabricating a new door (kinda essential for entry and exit).

Carbon fiber reinforcements being applied

We are hoping to start aligning the wheels and calibrating the brakes and making the tweaks that will give us the minimal fuel consumption we crave. Keep it up Team Supermileage, whoever said you can’t be both smart and pretty?

Chris and Jake xoxo

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to The Superblog II, which has come under new management.

We will be posting fun weekly updates (with pictures!) for your viewing pleasure.

Our fearless leader teaching the team about the design process.

So at this point you wonderful internet people are probably wondering, what is the UBC Supermileage Team? What are these guys all about? Are they really as good looking and debonair as I imagine?

Well, dear reader, allow me to put these queries to rest. Yes, yes we are. Some of us are still single too.

The current lineup of Supermilers

The UBC Supermileage Team is a group of undergrad students who design and construct a vehicle capable of ridiculously high gas mileage. How ridiculous? How does 3145 miles per gallon sound? Makes your Prius look like a monster truck don’t it? Once we’ve built our car we go and race it at competitions in the USA. To date we’ve won 4 times in the prototype division at SAE Supermileage, and for the last two years we have been competing in the urban concept division of the Shell Eco-Marathon in Houston, Texas. The prototype division was a pure fuel efficiency competition, but this time round in urban concept we need to worry about things like roadworthiness, minimum average speeds, and windshield wipers on top of a fuel consumption that makes electric cars jealous.

But you know what?

We’re up for the challenge. We’ve got an influx of bright-eyed eager second year students.  Workshop safety quizzes have been completed, timelines have been laid out, and Captain Connor has broken out the hacksaws. Oh yeah, it’s go time. Check in to our little blog every week gentle reader, to get all the inside scoops on upcoming events, interesting tidbits, team member profiles and whatever we decide is interesting during our Supermileage escapades.

Love Jake and Chris xxxx

Hi Houston!

And we’ve arrived!

After a trying morning of waking up at 4am, crawling out of bed, kissing our lady friends goodbye and lurching ourselves into taxi cabs, the team made it to YVR in record time.   We’ve learned many things, like how checking into your flight online may or may not actually make things quicker (ie:  “we need more information” actually means “do it all again at the airport” .

Our stomachs full of the Sky Breakfast Combo, we walked around, looking for inexpensive hats to buy.  Resisting the fedoras, we settled on Team Canada and Canucks hats.  Kyle took the stickers off his hat, refusing to buy into leaving giant round stickers on his new Canucks hat.

Connor and Neil adjust to the morning

Although we’d been at the airport with plenty of time to spare, apparently we got caught up in ongoing project work (we’re still in school / doing finals!) and managed to get on the plane at the last minute.

Goodbye Vancouver!

The plane ride started off rather entertaining with episodes of the Jetsons on the video screens, followed by Yogi Bear (by the way, if anyone knows where to get some Spacely Space Sprockets, I’d appreciate a hint. We’re currently looking to source some for our car).  Then it quickly became disappointing as students have no money to pay to watch TV beyond the “Free Preview” time.   Pulling out of our laptops and course notes and cranking up the Tragically Hip on our music players, we began our journey.

You take library cards, right?

Study Study!

We arrived in Houston faced with pleasant weather.   Our bags arrived in good order,  and shuttle was on time.  We drove into Houston, up to the hotel, then got inside…

Last on the plane, last off

And well, it is fantastic.  It’s well suited for us to stay for the next week.  The accommodations, comfort, resources.. and well.. view that the hotel provides is totally worth while.

Our View: of Discovery Green and the convention centre

Now we’ve eaten, picked up some last minute supplies, and are waiting for the hockey game to start.  Maybe ordering some pizza?  Definitely getting a good night’s sleep.

More tomorrow!