The 15 university teams competing in the Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge recently completed their Design and Specification Midway Reviews. These are webinar presentations prepared and put on by students and scored by industry judges. Students are evaluated on criteria such as their vehicle design and objectives, fluid power circuit, and selection of hardware. This gives judges the opportunity to speak directly with each team and provide them with feedback and considerations as they begin the next stage of their project.
Teams have begun to receive their components and over the next few months will begin building and testing their bikes in preparation for a sprint race, an efficiency challenge, and endurance challenge races at the final event that will take place in suburban Denver this April.
At Bimba Manufacturing, we’re excited to host the NFPA Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge. As innovators in motion solutions ourselves, we can hardly wait to see what creative solutions student teams come up with. Bimba joins other IMI Precision Engineering branded companies in fostering the next generation of engineers, designers, and technicians, and it’s hard to imagine a more fun way to do that than seeing the competitors’ bicycle designs tested on our course. We look forward to welcoming teams from all over the country to our IMI Norgren site in beautiful Littleton, Colorado.
-Kent Sowatzke, VP Engineering, Bimba Manufacturing
The final competition will be an exciting event where students, advisors, and industry supporters experience the final leg of this dynamic undergraduate engineering design challenge on April 11-12th, 2019. This event is made possible through the generous support of Bimba Manufacturing Company, a gold-level donor in the NFPA Foundation’s Pascal Society as well as Pascal Society Donors Danfoss Power Solutions, Iowa Fluid Power, Eaton Corporation, FORCE America, Gates Corporation, Parker Hannifin Corporation, Price Engineering, SunSource, Trelleborg Sealing Solutions, and Woodward Inc. who are serving as judges.
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