(Photos: Top- Adrian receiving final instructions re GPS Telemetry immediately prior to a Speed Performance run. Below- Adrian at Full Speed on the fastest run - can you see the HUGE Smile ?)Over each of the last two Saturdays (06th & 13th June) the Team, with AAEV's assistance, support and guidance, despite the cold and blustery winter conditions, fitted and tuned various Custom Electric Motor, Custom Brushless Motor Controller and Battery Set combinations & configurations.
During each preceding week, whilst Team members, under Paul C's direction and supervision, continued with bike frame and mount preparations and updating design documentation, AAEV did preliminary performance testing of various system combinations so the Team members could implement, test and verify the performance of thier design, on each weekend, 'on the bitumen' ...
Numerous speed & performance trial runs 'on the bitumen', have been done over a total of 13 hours for the last two weekends. The conduct of these runs were split between Gisborne & at AAEV's workshop.
Not everything always goes to plan, so some runs were not quite as expected or even, on two occassions, successful ... all a part of the learning experience ... new battery sets, and new system components, notwithstanding ...
However, after more than seven (7) seperate, carefully planned, unique configuration, performance runs, the team has now successfully settled on a design configuration with more than acceptable speed performance ...
You could have heard a 'pin drop' when the best straight line speed was announced ... then huge *Grins* all round ... some think the bike might now be too fast ?! ;)
Once the Teams' Electric Vehicle Motor system proposed design was proven & finalised, almost everyone present took a turn taking the bike for a short 'spin' ... including Team members Liam, Nathan, James, Adrian and Team Manager, Paul C ... parents and students alighting from the bike displaying cheshire grins.
The Team has now finalized thier base design for the EV Motor configuration for functionality & Speed, and is currently permanently fitting it to the 'Blue Thunder', Human-Electric Hybrid Race Tricycle !
Framework elements are being reworked and re-welded along with preliminary temporary enhancements to the aerodynamic shell, in preparation of further performance testing & optimisation. The bicycle pedal system and new cog set are also being re-fitted, so as to move on to the Human-Electric Hybrid phase.
The next stage will be rider technique training and fine-tuning the symbiosis of Human and Electric power sources to optimise and achieve maximum sustained speed and endurance. This will be done under progressively more realistic, simulated race conditions, culminating in a 30 minute simulated race. This will lead to capturing data for the next optimisation effort, simulated race conditions over 2.5 hours ... to optimise for best Endurance (distance) over 24 hours ...
A big callout THANK YOU from all involved to Tim for the munchies, drinks and the BBQ snags !
