Testing

The purpose of testing is to ensure the car can meet the design requirements stated at the beginning of this report and also provide the car performs well at the ASME RC Baja event. Some examples of testing include an inclined track to test the car’s ability to climb, and various straight-aways to test the cars top speed and acceleration.

The method used to determine the climbing ability of the car involved a piece of track that increasingly inclined at 5-degree integrals until the car could no longer climb up. Notes about the time and any wheel slippage will be recorded as well. The top speed test involved various different types of track material and a 30-foot-long straight-away. The car was driven multiple times on each material and the time for each trial was averaged out for the top speed. For the acceleration test, the same straight-aways from the speed test will be used, however, this time a shorter section of track will be measured out and the time for the car to get from one end to the other will be averaged out from multiple trials to get the average acceleration of the car.

Fig.11: Top Speed Testing location

The top speed test was the first test conducted on the car. The test involved driving the car on the loading dock at Hogue Hall and using a GPS app on a phone attached to the car to record the top speed achieved during that run. The car was driven 5-7 times, then an average top speed was calculated.

Fig.12: Top Speed Testing starting position

This picture shows the starting location of the car for the top speed test. the front left wheel of the car would be lined up on the piece of tape at the star of each trial to mitigate the amount of variables between each trial.

Fig.13: Climbing Test setup

The climbing test consisterd of the car being driven up multiple "ramps" at different angles. This image shows the last ramp that was used, 30 degrees above parallel. The car had to be driven up a starter ramp before it could go up the 30 degree incline due to the drop at the start of the 30 degree incline.

Fig.14: Car performing Climb Test

This image shows the car at the top of the 30 degree incline during one of the trials. The car was driven up this incline 5 times to ensure that it would actually be able to perform this feat if necessary during the competition.

Testing Video 1

This video shows one of the trials of the climbing test where the car is being driven up the 30 degree incline. THe climbing test consisted of driving the car up multiple ramps at different increasing angles. THe goal for this test was for the car to meet the requirement of being able to successfully climb up 30 degree inclines.