Monthly Reports

Pleasanton High School

January Progress Report - Car S56
The team members for the 2007-2008 Power Drive season are Seniors:  Jordan Axmann, Autumn Papineau, Zack Rasmussen, Geoff Unick, Trey Shafto, Alex Troester, Andy Paben, Kasey Lammers, and Elijah Zwiener. Juniors are:  Garret Bedke and Ben Paben.

One of the goals we have set for this year is to make a great power drive car that is safe and follows all the rules and regulations. Last year’s car kept breaking down and gave us a lot of problems, this year we hope to improve and compete for top honors. The second goal is to make sure that we can make a car that can catch everyone’s eye and also one that performs great too. The third goal we set is to make sure that we have fun doing this project and building relationships with our teammates! 

In August, Pleasanton High School Power Drive Team first started off on glancing back at the cars from the past to get ideas for the 2008 car.  Each person on power drive got to draw a sketch of what they would like the car to look like.  Lots of brainstorming/problem solving was being performed in this first step of design process.  After choosing the design we wanted, we went to work. Teams were formed according to their talents and desires.  This enables everyone to get involved and help make this project successful.  

In September, we decided on using aluminum trim coil for the body.  We then took the sketch that the majority liked and started to create a drawing using AutoCAD.  The frame was designed and dimensions were put in place.
 In October, we started working on the frame.  The fabrication team practiced welding aluminum.  This took about two weeks to be efficient.  We are using one inch round aluminum stock for the frame and roll cage.  We made a pattern for our roll bar and then practice bending one inch steal, after a few tries we were ready for the aluminum stock.  We also started disassembling the old car for parts for the new one.  The new design calls for the driver to be in a laying down position.
  
In November, we order parts for the steering and suspension.  We sent our old wheels in to get re-spoked and get check for any wear on our hubs.   We discussed where the front wheels should be located and discussed terms that are important to the front suspension and wheel set up.  The terms that were covered were caster, camber, toe-in, toe-out, kingpin inclination, ackerman angle, and suspension.  We looked for information on the internet for simple set-ups that we could use on our car.  We have used the internet for locating all our parts and helping in almost every decision we make. 
 
In December, we got the frame and roll cage done. We located the front wheel location and welding in the cross braces for the rack and pinion. We then set up the front wheels, made our own tie-rod using parts that had been ordered.  We then made brackets and put the electrical components on the car and installed the batteries.  We check twice the electrical diagram to make sure all wiring was hooked up properly.  Our goal was to have our car moving by Christmas.  December has been really cold but we found a day to go out and drive the car.  Problems that occurred that day were as follows:  chain came off, toe-in was not adjusted properly, steering wheel was too large and hit against body while turning, decided to change hand throttle to foot throttle.  We adjusted the toe-in and got the chain tightened and drove the car back and forth in front of the school.  After we felt it was dependable and we were about froze we headed by to the shop.

We have made an animated model of the car on a computer. It has been done with the software ‘Auto Desk Inventor’, which allows you to make 3-D drawings. The model reflects the actual car with great precision. We started out with the drawing the frame to the car. It was difficult because the frame includes several different angles and pipes of different sizes. Once that was figured out the drawing has gone pretty smooth.

In January, we have been working on the body design; we have many sketches and had many ideas on how we want the car to look.  We plan on using aluminum trim coil to cover the surface of the body.  We hope by the middle of February we can get the body on the car and have it finished by the end of that month.

February Progress Report - Car S56
During February we filled out a Membership Form from Electrathon America Hand-book, a mutual benefit, non profit organization. We filled the form out with our team name, our powerdrive cars, and our address. Our new insurance policies will cost us a total of $45. Our S59 car insurance costs $30.

We were able to order a new windshield for our car during the month of February.  The windshield only set us back $76, and we ordered a little extra in case we made a mistake.  The windshield that we ordered is made out of a flexible plastic so it will fit our unique car.

We are finishing up making the body out of  aluminum trim coil. We used pop rivets to put the trim coil together. After the different sections were made, we placed them on the car to give us an idea of the overall look. Although the whole body isn’t done, we have our ideas, we just have to make them and put them together.

We also worked on the throttle and brakes during February.  We put in the foot petal and connected it to the accelerator.  We worked on the brakes.

We hooked up our hand brakes to our tires.   We made copies of our driver licenses and filled out our waver forms.
This shows hold old the members are and if they have parental permission.

March Progress Report - Car S56
In March we started applying filler to the front end of our car.  The front of our car comes to a sharp point so we are trying to dull our point.  Once we apply the filler we will use a sander to sand it out nice and smooth to prepare it for a paint job.

At the beginning of March, our windshield arrived at the school.  We then decided to make the frame for the windshield and the top part of the car.  Along with making the frame for the top part of the car, we are finishing up on the tail end and pop riverting the aluminum into place.

The team decided which Power Drive meets we are going to go to.  The first meet we will be attending will be April 5, 2008 in Hastings.  After our race in Hastings, if we don't damage our car, we will consider going to Lincoln April 6 to attend our second meeting.  Our goals at both meets are to finish the race with no wrecks or problems with our car and to finish in top place. 

April Progress Report - Car S56
In April, we started off by making a banner for our team.  It will be used to show our drive rwhere our pit stop is at.  The banner is made from our white board with our letters in an easy to read front madw ith our viyl cutter.

Our car is able to move but we still hae to make adjustments.  When we finally had a nice day we test drove our car.  It drove smooth but we notice a couple of minor things that we needed to fix.  We had to tighten up our chain because it was too loose and could fall off at any time.  We also started to paint ourcar.  We put primer on the parts that were already done while we waited forother parts of the car to be finished.

We are trying to get all our paperwork done we can start on the final report.  One chair that was on thetop of ourlist was to check our car over with the rules.  We wanted to get this done in the early part of April so we still had time to fix anything that violated the rules.