Student Roadster
Comments(1) Years ago, in what feels almost like another life, I contributed a minor part towards development of a student project at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. That project is now complete and the result is absolutely light years beyond what I expected at the time. They blew me away!
Photo copyright by Alan Orlič Belšak & StudentRoadster.com
It was the turn of the millennium when a few guys, students at the end of their B Sc, decided to build their own car. At the time me and a friend from high school joined the team, the project had a really bad name for some reason, Frog-K, now changed thankfully (however the car should still have at least a nickname). Those were my first weeks at university and I was keen to do something on a practical level, rather than listen to boring theory day in and day out.
As it turned out the project didn’t really seem to be going anywhere fast at the time and it was all still on a very theoretical, vaporware level. All the contributions were done as thesis projects, seminars for extra points at certain courses etc. and although we did have a donor car (Peugeot 406) nothing substantial, dare I say dirty, was being done back then. I wanted a hands-on approach not calculations and writing reports. I had much to learn…
My assignment on transmission/power transfer settings using data from Peugeot 406 1.6l engine and transmission was completed fairly quickly but after that I pretty much gave up on the deal. It seemed to me that nothing will ever get done at the pace and direction it was going.
diagram of time/speed/revs, copyright: StudentRoadster/Jernej Burkeljca
acceleration diagram, copyright: StudentRoadster/Jernej Burkeljca
I stayed on at the faculty for another year before quitting and moving on to other things. And I all but forgot about that little car. Until about a year ago when I saw an article in some magazine saying it was nearly completed. It caught my interest to say the least. The thing was beautiful.
For some reason it crept into my mind a few days ago and I went looking for more news about it. The end result was stunning. I was more than proven wrong and for that I applaud the entire team that worked on it over the years.
Photo copyright by Alan Orlič Belšak & StudentRoadster.com
More photos and plenty of other details on the making of this car can be found on their website.
