Staughton College – Student Article

The students at Staughton College hope to encourage and support other participants in the RACV Energy Breakthrough. In their first article, they describe the benefits of an aerondynamics overhaul, frame construction and their motor testing.

Hi we are Staughton College and we have already started our 2006 hybrid, and after 6 days of testing our new fairing is just about finished.

Our new fairing is 85% carbon and 15% glass, with the main differences in the fairing are weight and size, with the shape modified to improve aerodynamics.

Past lap times at our 820 metre training track were 1 min 5 seconds per lap, and our new times per lap are 1 min 1 second – 1:02. (Our fastest lap has been a 59 second)

Frame Construction

The 2nd thing we are working on over the school holidays is the frame. The frame in 2005 was cromoly. Our 2006 frame is also cromoly, but we have gone up one size in the main tube as our 38mm main tube needed to be stiffer to improve power transfer to the rear wheel.

We will be testing this in March when it is finished.

Motor Testing

The 3rd thing to be tested is 4 new motors. The motor we ran in 2005 was a 200 watt brushed motor. The motor was very good, but it could only go to 45 kph. It used about 11.6 amps per hour on paper, but we would need to change our 18amp batteries, every 40mins. We are testing on our old hybrid with the 4 new motors:

1/ The first motor is 800watts 36 volt at 24 amps. It rpm is 3800 and we can do 65+kph with no problems. This is the one we would like but, Mr Panczel will not let us.(too fast!) We will start testing the next motor in March and provide to the website an update then.

If you would like any info regarding our new or old hybrid, please call Mr Panczel on 0404 430 303

Thank you and best of luck to all teams going to EB06

Joey & Ebony

Staughton College

If you’d like to get your team’s story online, send a short article and/or photo to the Online Manager, his details are available through the Contact page.