Over two semesters, 140 mechanical engineering students worked on various parts of four futuristic-looking cars that targeted the needs of the average 22-year-old, single college female. The parameters of the project were set by PACE, an alliance formed by General Motors, Electronic Data Systems, Sun Microsystems and UGS.
They unveiled their work on Wednesday during a weeklong conference as part of an annual forum put on by PACE.
Keeping everyone on the same page was the hardest part of the project, said Will Blattman, BYU project leader. "Some people were a week behind, some were three weeks ahead and some were done. It was difficult keeping everyone communicating."
To keep the lines of communication open despite language, time zone and cultural differences, Greg Jensen, the faculty adviser of the PACE project, said every available technology was used including cell phones, chat programs and e-mail.
"This has made incredible friendships," said Jensen, a BYU professor of mechanical engineering. "When terrorists are blowing everything apart, this sort of thing put it all back together."
Schools from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Korea, Sweden and the U.S. participated in the project and designed everything from the bumpers to the seats to the engines and tested it all on computer programs. Each participating school had to get the necessary funds to participate in the project, but PACE gave Virginia Tech and BYU a grant of $15,000 each. BYU's College of Engineering then donated $20,000 for the rest of the project.
The presentation was done completely by students and included the quirks they ran into along the way. The BYU team that designed the chassis first tested their chassis on the computer system at mach 3 , or more than 2,000 mph. They then overcame the software problem and were able to test it at the appropriate 60 mph that a car might normally be traveling during an accident.
University West in Sweden worked with three other schools to design the exteriors of the cars but played with an idea they call the "personal touch."
"It makes your car your car," said Marcus Hellaker, a representative of his group.
Hellaker and his partner Daniel Ritter decided to give their car a chance to change accessories on a day to day basis, an idea they got from their girlfriends back home.
"Nowadays everyone wants to be different," Ritter said. "When you get a car you can pick the color and the rims but then you're stuck with them. Maybe one day you'll feel like flowers and want a flower theme on your car so we made everything to click into place so you can change it if you want to."
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