The KillaCycle crew spent the day with David Pogue and the PBS Nova film crew yesterday. (July 16th) They are doing a show about advanced battery technology.
Until they actually saw the first run at Bandimere Speedway, they did not fully believe “Zero to 60 mph in less than one second.” The film crew was not prepared for the acceleration on the launch. After the first run, they said, “It was on the starting line…and then it was just GONE!”
The camera crew attached little mini-cams all over the KillaCycle (and the ElectroCat ). They got fantastic action footage. Since the KillaCycle is an all-out racing machine, we did not concern ourselves with AC magnetic shielding or trying to minimize stray fields like you would do on a street EV. (Like you would not add a muffler to a racing ICE machine.) Thus, there were some very weird distortions in some of the on-board video footage. Kind of like science fiction force-field looking effects. I hope they show these “force field” clips.
You can see more photos in the photo album here.
It was a great pleasure meeting and working with the Nova team.
If Nova doesn’t use the distorted images for the TV show..do you think you could talk them into posting some footage on youtube for us to see??
Are you going to Portland International Raceway for EV drags next weekend? Whatever, keep on!
I doubt if the footage would be made available to anyone outside of Nova. We just bought an identical camera, so we will likley mount it to the KillaCycle and get virtually identical footage. We’ll post that
With New Zealand, Pike’s Peak, and the electric motorcycle streamliner build, we are flat out. We just don’t have the time or money to go to Portland this year. Sorry.
Billl/Eva, did they give you a time when it is going to be broadcast? I want to post a link on my website.
Vic
The four-part Nova series “Making Stuff” is scheduled to air in November. Here is a link to the blog:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/author/daniel-parsons/
Here is a link to the Materials Research Society press release about funding the show:
http://www.mrs.org/s_mrs/sec.asp?CID=25698&DID=293275
By the way, commercialize the ElectroCat and put out an IPO.
I have sent a thread you might be interested in that sort of goes along with your article. Disregard if you have already seen this…..
http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/renewables/ford-focus-electric-car-plugin-hybrid/
3 key items here.
1-Using solar to power a factory (lots of robotics used).
2-Factory happens to build electric cars (they could probably add a swappable lithium battery to expand the range). The same principles could be used for a cycle factory. Building with “clean energy” would certainly have it’s selling points -and the energy cost would be “0″ after the break even point.
3-No mention of using a carport type structure to trickle charge parked vehicles (of any kind).
http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/11-charging-stations-designed-to-refuel-evs-with-renewable-energy/
Keep up the good work. I am trying to encourage the local sports stations to follow and report on, electric vehicle events.
I would bet the “distorted images” have nothing to do with magnetic fields, but a consequence of using “rolling shutter” minivideo cameras.
I always hate it when big productions do this instead of using proper “global shutter” cameras for vehicle shots.
The result is that wobling image, due to the interaction between the vibrations and the crap camera.
Hope you got my note on FB. They are going to air the Killacycle PBS/NOVA “Making Stuff” piece on February 2, 2011. Check Local Listings.
Hi,
I used to be a senior design engineer for a military subcontractor and was head of design for another electronics company so if you need any help or tips on the electronics front let me know.
Gordon