Here is an interesting concept that has us thinking about the future of transportation: inflatable vehicles.
It sounds strange to consider, but some students at the University of Tokyo have an intriguing proof of concept (dubbed POIMO), and the aerospace has already proven out these ideas further.
The concept is basic, the body of the vehicle (think: frame, bodywork, seat, etc) is actually an inflatable bag that when pumped with sufficient pressure, becomes a rigid structure.
Now the dust has settled on another TT, a look back over the numerous pages of lap times and race results can only tell us so much. With so many incredible stories to be told it is difficult to choose one for this article.
From the blatantly obvious, such as; Dunlop’s incredible four wins, McGuinness’ new outright lap record or Ian Lougher rounding out his career on the Mountain course, which spanned four decades, tallying nine wins plus an additional nineteen podiums.
To the equally awe-inspiring, like; David Johnson’s impressive return to the island on privateer machinery, Dave Madsen-Mygdal completing his 100th TT race, and the first ever Chinese competitor at the TT, the likeable Cheung Wai-On.
Above all these, one team’s story caught my eye – the Buckeye Current team from the Ohio State University’s College of Engineering, whose Honda CBR1000RR-based electric motorcycle was tackling the Mountain course.
Consisting of a number of students from various science and engineering programs, the team’s RW-2 bike was the sole American entry from an educational institute and was pitting itself against three other teams from similar institutes and six non-collegiate teams from across the globe.
Asphalt & Rubber regulars should know by now that we sometimes like to take the press materials a company sends us, and “spice them up a bit” when we think they’re lackluster or too fluffy about the product being pitched. Our goal with these satirical works isn’t to poke these companies in the eye, but instead to say, “Hey, we know you can do better. Here’s an example that shows how your marketing materials could be worse than they already are, but still manage to engage your end customer more effectively.” With this in mind, we present the Kawasaki ZX-6R drinking game: the happy merger of the worlds most boring commercial, with America’s favorite college dorm room time waster. Click past the jump to play.
MotoStudent competition is a competition created by the Moto Engineering Foundation in Spain. While the scope is Spanish and European for now, it has promise to expand to encompass schools from across the globe. The goal of the competition is to have student design and build motorcycles in a fashion similar the Formula SAR competitions in American colleges, which are sponsored by marque companies who use the events to recruit top talent engineers and future employees.
Source: Motostudent via The Kneeslider
Have AutoCAD, will design motorcycles for food.