Mechanical Engineering Students Compete with Single-Seat, All-Terrain Sporting Vehicle
Members of the A-State "Red Wolf Riders" (from left to right): William Rigsby, Morgan Diamond, Christian Stremming, Zack Bynum, Noah Sanders and Dr. Shivan Haran
JONESBORO – A group of Arkansas State University students is part of the only team in the state who qualified to compete in a recent vehicle engineering competition.
The group who are part of the student chapters of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE), recently competed in the International Baja SAE Competition in Oshkosh, Wis.
The A-State "Red Wolf Riders" qualified for the final endurance race.
“A little over half the teams qualified for this final stage out of more than 85 teams from universities across the globe,” said Dr. Shivan Haran, director and associate professor of mechanical engineering at A-State.
In this competition, the mechanical engineering students designed and built a single-seat all-terrain sporting vehicle. The design had to be a reliable, maintainable, ergonomic and economical prototype to serve a recreational user market.
“The students had to function as a team to design, engineer, build, test, promote and compete with a vehicle within the limits of the rules,” said Haran.
Haran mentored the team of mechanical engineering students responsible for the competition vehicle. They designed the main frame, suspension system, gearbox and drive, brake system and four-wheel drive.
Team members who attended the competition include William Rigsby of Trumann, Morgan Diamond of Jonesboro, Noah Sanders of Sherwood, Zack Bynum of Wynne, and Christian Stremming of Osceola.
Other members of the group who worked on aspects of the project including design, fabrication, testing and documentation include Mason Rhodes of Benton, Montgomery Miller of Jonesboro, Jacob Oster of Bay, Noah George of Jonesboro, Rangsiya Faihin of Thailand, and Kailey Rodriguez of Drasco.
In addition to building the actual vehicle, Haran said the team provided written documentation of a design review, a cost report, business presentation and a technical inspection report in order to qualify to participate in the competition.
“These subsystems were designed from scratch by groups of students within the team, utilizing their knowledge and expertise learned during their courses, lab work and other research that had to be undertaken for this purpose,” said Haran.
This is only the second time this A-State team has participated in this event. They will begin preparing for next year's competition this fall.
