Offroad Bumper: Mulligan

        I've decided to restart the bumper I'm building for my truck. The main reason for this is that I've found a much better design online, which looks much better:

        

        I can build this new bumper with metal twice as thin, but It will be even stronger, as the metal has a much stronger structure. I didn't really have a clear idea of what I was doing when I was building my first bumper attempt, and the fact that I had to build it at school meant that I didn't have a way of checking if the pieces I made fit properly.

        The bumper will fit onto my truck by simply sliding onto the frame ends, and bolting in.

        I'll be able to start building version 2 of my bumper once I get a working arc welder, and build a welding table. I've also made a 3d rendering of what my overall plans are for the truck.

Physics Projectile Motion Video

        For a recent physics assignment about projectile motion, we were given 2 choices: we could build some kind of projectile launcher, or we could film an example of projectile motion, such as a soccer ball being kicked. In either case, we had to do a report. Originally, I felt like building something, but then I got the idea of filming a snowmobile jump. Not only was it fun for me to do, but it also gave me the chance to play around with movie editing, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Here's the product of my work:
(You may want to skip the calculations, that part is somewhat dreary) 

ODSS Electric Car Build Part 1

         For the next couple of months, I will be documenting the progress of the ODSS electric car team as we build a new car. Our goal is to go from the simple frame that we have now, to a fully built car by the May 24 weekend, the date of the competition. 

          So far, we took an old aluminum frame that we had from a previous car, and trimmed off several pieces of it to give us a nice simple chassis to build off of. The plan for this car is to have a simple set-up, but with as little wasted space as possible. This was one of the main drawbacks of our previous cars.

        After the chassis was modified, we cut out a panel of sheet metal for the floor. We haven't used sheet metal as a floor before, but this time we're trying it instead of plywood to help conserve weight. This will also help if we drive in wet conditions, as plywood would act like a sponge, soaking up water and adding massive weight to the car.