The Advanced Energy Vehicle (AEV) was created to improve accessibility for Linden’s residents to Polaris. The location of the I–71 highway cuts Linden off from many of the city’s resources and makes travel much more difficult, 25 of the highest crash intersections of the city are in Linden. The AEV is an energy efficient vehicle that will be used to carry a caboose that will be used as public transport. Access to this public transport will lower crash rates, increase job opportunities, and allow access to more resources to the residents of Linden’s community. The development of the AEV from the safe city grant will allow for the most efficient and cost effective AEV possible to save the city of Columbus money while providing important resources to the Linden community.
The AEV developed focused on consistency, power usage, speed, weight. With these primary focuses in mind the AEV changed throughout production, switching from a horizontal platform with 45 degree wings and initially used a low power method to transport it. Through testing the AEV changed and turned vertically with flat wings and a hybrid program. For further details on development of the AEV see the Evolution of Design tab.
Final Run Results
The final run of the AEV overshot the first gate but other than this the AEV ran perfectly. The gate issue was an anomaly and the AEV ran consistently and the discrepancy can be attributed to the battery providing inconsistent power to the motors. It was noted during testing that after a couple runs with the same battery the AEV would begin to become very inconsistent exponentially. A fully charged battery is essential for consistent results. From the final run data was gathered and analyzed.
Results were recorded and the AEV did the final run in 60 seconds and used 225.7 Joules. The AEV was slightly slower and had a higher final budget cost than other groups but used much less energy. The graph below shows the total cost of the average AEV compared to average AEV. This data was found by setting the initial value to the total cost of the example run and then adding the amount of money spent on energy(1 Joule = $500) and then adding the amount of money spent on time on the track(1 second = $1500)*. So as from the graph it is apparent that if Group L’s AEV was implemented, despite the slightly higher initial cost it would eventually save the city money.
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