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so, in my final year of engineering school i decided to actually use and apply some of the things i have learnt towards some extra curricular event. The one i decided to join was the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race to be held in Calgary, Alberta next weekend. The race requires that the running surface has to be made of a portland cement based concrete and the toboggan must have a fully functioning brake system. The frame must include a roll bar and be enclosed on the sides. Speeds down the hill have been clocked at upwards of 60 kilometers per hour, or about 37 mph. The braking distance should be something like 10 feet, meaning when braking, the sled will experience about 9 gs of acceleration.
You may ask why concrete toboggan? Well, if you have known engineering students, we tend to build stuff that is totally unnecessary and useless just because we can.
Well things have progressed nicely in the past few months and i have some pictures to show of that progress.
Our theme is trucking and our team name is the U of M Mother Truckers. We all have uniforms and silly name patches. It should be a blast.
Oh and these skills and abilities am using? Basically it's drinking copius amounts of alcohol, which i have learned to do in 5 years of engineering.
onto the pics!
This is our display for the Technical exhibition. We built a diner. The gas pump doesnt exactly pump gas. It is more for pumping alcohol from a tank inside witha CO2 pump, and it pumps it through the gas nozzle.
The fibreglass semi shell you see is on wheels and can steer. There is also a grill that is not in the pic.
View attachment 46937
this picture is of the frame of the toboggan. Made of tubular aluminum, made all by us.
View attachment 46938
View attachment 46939
last one. This is a picture of the skis we will use. They are concrete with a carbon fibre sheet on top, which is epoxied to the concrete for strength. We also have full slabs of concrete that we might use as well, depending on the conditions of the snow.
View attachment 46940
not shown is our pneumatic braking system. Yeah, we have an air tank that will move to pistons which will push a piece of angle iron into the snow to stop us. I will get pics of that soon. and i will post more pics from the event when i return nect week.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
You may ask why concrete toboggan? Well, if you have known engineering students, we tend to build stuff that is totally unnecessary and useless just because we can.
Well things have progressed nicely in the past few months and i have some pictures to show of that progress.
Our theme is trucking and our team name is the U of M Mother Truckers. We all have uniforms and silly name patches. It should be a blast.
Oh and these skills and abilities am using? Basically it's drinking copius amounts of alcohol, which i have learned to do in 5 years of engineering.
onto the pics!
This is our display for the Technical exhibition. We built a diner. The gas pump doesnt exactly pump gas. It is more for pumping alcohol from a tank inside witha CO2 pump, and it pumps it through the gas nozzle.
The fibreglass semi shell you see is on wheels and can steer. There is also a grill that is not in the pic.
View attachment 46937
this picture is of the frame of the toboggan. Made of tubular aluminum, made all by us.
View attachment 46938
View attachment 46939
last one. This is a picture of the skis we will use. They are concrete with a carbon fibre sheet on top, which is epoxied to the concrete for strength. We also have full slabs of concrete that we might use as well, depending on the conditions of the snow.
View attachment 46940
not shown is our pneumatic braking system. Yeah, we have an air tank that will move to pistons which will push a piece of angle iron into the snow to stop us. I will get pics of that soon. and i will post more pics from the event when i return nect week.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
