CSUN’s human-powered vehicle (HPV) “The Khach” probably won’t qualify for the Tour de France anytime soon, but that’s just fine with the 21 CECS mechanical engineering seniors responsible for designing, building and racing it. The Khach claimed first place in the 2016 American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) Human Powered Vehicle Challenge last spring, besting vehicles entered by more than 30 teams from the U.S., Egypt and Mexico.
Each team in the HPV Challenge brought an originally designed humanpowered vehicle, which was judged for design, workmanship and innovation, among other categories. They then showed off their vehicles’ performance in drag races and endurance races that tested speed and construction. The Khach, a recumbent tricycle with two wheels in the front and one in the back, won several challenges, enough to claim the overall firstplace title at the event, which took place April 22-24, in San Jose.
Named for mechanical engineering professor and faculty advisor Aram Khachatourians, The Khach was designed to be as light as possible, weighing in at only 62 pounds, as opposed to the 100-plus-pound vehicles of other teams. The team’s members designed the faring to be aerodynamic and chose the right combination of gears for the wheels to travel up to six feet in one revolution of the pedals, optimizing the vehicle and improving on the model from the previous year’s team.
A special innovation was an autonomous brake assist system (ABAS), which the team incorporated after a vehicle from a competing school in the previous year’s challenge lost control and collided with one of the ASME judges while traveling at more than 38 miles per hour. (The judge ended up needing surgery.) The ABAS continuously senses objects in front of the vehicle and analyzes the live data and distance from the object. If the object moves away or distance increases, no action is taken, but if the object is approaching, the brake system will automatically engage without any input from the rider, bringing the vehicle to a safe stop and preventing an accident. The CSUN team executed this innovation idea flawlessly even though the majority of tasks involved coding and electronics.
The HPV was a senior design project for the students fortunate enough to be selected for the class. Space in the class is competitive because Khachatourians carefully selects those who have the right attitude and want to work as a team that raises the bar each year, learning while having fun.
“Not anyone can just sign up,” he says. “I have to go through a selection process. I ask, ‘What do you bring to the table?’ because this is about teamwork.”
Members of the 2016-17 CSUN HPV team are continuing their predecessors’ momentum and plan to maintain CSUN’s first-place status by introducing a new optimized vehicle that goes faster, is environmentally friendly and incorporates yet another innovation.