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Taking Students off Road Racing

Engineering Students Put Their Designs to the Test in Off-Road Vehicle Competition

August 1, 2009

Engineering students designed, built and raced all-terrain vehicles in a competition that tests the cars' overall durability. To determine the best design, a winding course mapped out with traffic cones through a field gauges a car's maneuverability and steering system. Vehicle traction is challenged in a pit of 10 inches of mud, and a weight box on a sled is pulled by each of the cars, testing to see how much weight each car can drag. Finally, a four hour race among all the teams reveals the endurance capabilities of each car.

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Science Insider

WHAT ARE G FORCES? Acceleration is motion in which either an object's speed or direction (that is, its velocity) changes. Mathematically, acceleration and gravity are equivalent, just like energy and mass. A g is a unit for measuring acceleration in terms of gravity. g forces arise whenever something accelerates (as opposed to standing still or moving at a constant speed). 1 g is the same as the force that pulls a person toward the ground. When a roller coaster goes around a corner at high speed, the extra pressure riders feel would be measured by a measurement of more than 1 g.

WHAT IS CAD: A computer-aided design system combines hardware and software to enable the user to design everything from furniture to cars and airplanes. The user can view a design from any angle and zoom in or out for close-up or long-distance views. CAD systems typically rely on a combination of a keyboard and conventional mouse to control what's on the screen.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.-USA, contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

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