School Proyect: Building a car!!

[Mig-El]

Hi

 

I come here asking for advices.

By the end of this semester, my team and I have got to have a car built by ourselves. It doesn't have to be a real size car, maybe just a small one like a big toy. But it has to be able to run on its own.

We have to build the engine from zero. If any of you guys have had a proyect like this, know some sites that can help me or knows a lot about mechanics and electronics please give me a hand. It's my first semester in college and I have to do this!!!

[Black Rose]

Sounds like a big-job, as for building the engine yourself, internal combustion would be out the window on safety grounds

[Mig-El]

it can be very simple. as long as it runs 10m... If it doesn't I'm screwed.

It's just that I don't know anything about this stuff.

the thought is to make an engine with a battery and a magnet but

that's just the simplest thing and I woluld like somwthing a tiny higher level.

[RobC]

I would firstly suggest using Google to find other projects of similar types , there must have been other ones , its up to you to think of what keywords you search for .

As an engineer myself and to tell you what I would personally look at and with a requirement of 10m , Id be looking for running it on batteries . Again , people can point you in directions but ultimately you have to do the work - use Google .

[Black Rose]

Get yourself an electric wheelchair or electric mobility scooter and rob the electric motors from there for your power

[rudy_o]

Wow. Building a car is a very tough proyect I think. :uhoh:

[PolarMonkey]

you could look into using a Lego Mindstorms kit to build the car...

 

http://video.google.com/videosearch?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENXX247&q=lego+mindstorms+car+instructions&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=x4jSSvrIKcOgjAev-oH5Aw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=5&ved=0CCgQqwQwBA#

 

but then it might not be quite what you need to build since you say you're supposed to build the engine from scratch? & i'm not quite sure how big a car you're supposed to build too. what subject/module is this for btw?

[Mig-El]

the size does not matter. But actually we have made the car of CONSTRUX, similar to lego. The thing is how to make our own engine. We can just use the rotation axis of another engine.

 

It's the final proyect for my class "Introduction to Mechatronics Engineering"

[winnie]

You're in your first semester and you have to build your own engine? Can't you simply use a pre-built electric motor?

Everything else would be a bit... too much, in my opinion.

 

But if you have to, try to assemble a DC motor - it's a pretty tough job to accpomplish, though, you need a lot of knowledge and equipment for that.

I can't really help you with that - I'm quite familiar with gas turbines, but I guess that's a bit overpowered for your tiny car ;D

[Mig-El]

yeah exactly it's got to be a DC motor but I can use the axis or whatever it's called in english, that stick which it all spins around from pre-built motor. Now we are struggling with the armature and the magnets, we don't know how to work that out and how to have it glued or whatever to the car