UJ’s eight speed off to London
AUCKLAND PARK – UJ students head to London to demonstrate their 32kg electric racing vehicle.
Students of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) headed to London on 30 June.
The eight-student team is from the faculty of engineering and the built environment. They competed in the Shell-Eco Marathon Europe.There they demonstrated their version of their 32kg ultra-efficient racing vehicle.
The stellar team that represented South Africa were: Pieter Erasmus (team leader) , Eduard Basson, Reginald Masher, Nicholas Harvey, Shalaka Thomas, Paul Lee, Ryan Coetzee and Marissa Erasmus.
They went up against other students that amounted to about 300 teams. The marathon is designed for students to produce innovative solutions by using renewable and nonrenewable resources by designing, manufacturing and building a car that will be highly fuel efficient for future transportation.
According to senior lecturer at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Science, Dr Yuko Roodt, the UJ team’s first generation electrical vehicle was very efficient already. “The car did 140km/kwh,” said Roodt. “This meant it could drive 140km on just one kilowatt of electricity, about the same power as using a microwave on a medium for an hour,” he said.
He added that vehicle won the African Shell Eco-Marathon at the Kyalami Raceway about two years ago. “In 2015, the team built their second-generation electric vehicle and won the SA Shell Eco Marathon for the second time at Zwartkops,” explained Roodt. He said that at the time they got a result of 343.8 km/kWh, doubling their performance in a single year.
Roodt proudly professed that this result had placed the UJ team among the top teams internationally.
The race track the teams competed on were built around the Aquatic centre at the Olympic Stadium in London. The UJ team was the first team from South Africa to compete in the Shell Eco-Marathon Europe 2016 competition.
“A project like this provides students with the opportunity to learn and work on an intricate and complex project with many aspects from communication, administration, logistics, design, development, integration and testing. This is the culmination of all their studies. The marathon really tests their engineering skills and ability to innovate,” said Roodt.
He concluded he was very glad to have worked with such a motivated and hardworking group of students. “We are very excited to represent UJ and South Africa at this event.”
Details: UJ, e-mail: myfuture@uj.ac.za or 011 559 4555.
