Each week, the team meets on a Friday at the Pitstop café on campus to reflect on the weeks progress whilst we all enjoy a full English breakfast. We vote for idea of the week who gets their breakfast for free. We will update this section each week so you can follow our progress on our way to reaching the World Championships in August.
Week 1: 05/02/24
The project commenced on 5th February 2024; we began with introductions and our academic supervisor Melle explained how much freedom we have with this project. We assigned our team roles and made contact with the British Human Power Club, the Bicycle Mayor of Bath, and researched the different human power vehicle races. We will be working in the Design Studio in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, where we can benefit from the student workshop, the wind tunnel for prototypes and a test track at Odd Down Cycle Track.
Week 2: 12/02/24
After a productive meeting with Pete Dyson, (the current time trial record holder for Lands End to London, studying for his PHD at the University of Bath) the team agreed to choose him as our rider for the World Championships. We are very excited about this, and will be having regular meetings with Pete to tailor our design to his needs as well as helping him practice the fundamentals of a recumbent bike. We spent the rest of the week researching current HPV designs, helping us to create user needs and target specification analysis. The week culminated in the first of our weekly “Pitstop Breakfasts”, where the team met on Friday morning at the local Pitstop Café on campus for a full English breakfast. Congratulations to Keiran, our Publicity Manager, who has won the inaugural idea of the week for some fantastic website ideas! TBHP are excited to continue with ideation and hopefully begin some rough prototyping next week!
On Friday morning, we had an online call with two legends in the HPV scene. Russell Bridge and Barney Harle were kind enough to spend some time answering many questions we had. Their expertise on design, manufacture and racing was invaluable and we immediately made improvements to our specification. Russell's "Snoopy" is one of the fastest HPV's around and we're looking forward to using their insights in our own design!
Week 3: 19/02/24
A very productive week! The team visited two bike shops in Bristol, Giant and Certini; a big challenge for us is our limited budget for parts, so were hoping some bike shops might have some that were at the end of their life that we could get a for a cheap price. Both Giant and Certini were extremely generous and supplied us with a range of parts, from various forks, chains and cassettes to 700c wheels and even a pair of hydraulic disc brakes ! We are very grateful for the donations and look forward to hopefully getting more parts in the future!
The team met at the end of week three for another breakfast, where they had an inspiration talk from the “Play of the Week” sponsor, George “breakfast” Molloy. He gave the team a much needed boost ahead of another busy day!
Week 4: 26/02/24
Pitstop breakfast was on the road this week as the team traveled up to Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub to visit Adam's placement provider, Vorteq Sports. They develop and test aerodynamic clothing for elite cyclists and have had. We spoke to the Managing Director, Rob Lewis, who is an expert in CFD and aerodynamics.
He gave us valuable advice on the design and development of the fairing for our vehicle, and an opportunity to look around the incredible facilities there, including the Sports Performance Wind Tunnel, which has been designed specifically for cyclists and other athletes to optimise their performance.
Week 8: 25/03/24
Work continues on our vehicle, as we are now splitting off to work on our own sub-systems. The overall design concept has been selected, and now the team will be working on the following:
James - Frame and Component Integration
Keiran - Drivetrain
Joe - Human Factors and Control
Micheal - Rider Containment and Fairing Composition
Maleh - Ground Interaction (wheels, tires, brakes)
Adam - Aerodynamics
We were also lucky enough to feature in edition 155 of the Laidback Cyclist magazine, thanks to Nigel Slee and the British Human Power Club. So far we have been welcomed with open arms by the BHPC community, and we can't wait to get on track racing with everyone!
Week 12: 22/04/24
This week we confirmed some very exciting news as we announced our partnership with Silverstone Composites!
Silverstone Composites are experts in carbon-fibre manufacturing, and have kindly agreed to support us with the manufacture of our frame and fairing. Their expertise and assistance will be invaluable to the project, and allow us to be even more ambitious with our design.
Key Features:
- Recumbent (laid-back) rider position to reduce frontal area.
- Aerofoil-shaped full fairing to minimise drag.
- Front wheel drive system for compactness and efficiency.
- Modular frame allowing X points of adjustability.
- Intuitive steering based on Human-centred design.
- 20" wheels.
- Hydraulic disc brakes.
Week 17: 27/05/24
Introducing our first human-powered vehicle, BHP1!
After a long semester of work on our design, this week we were proud to display our progress at the university's annual Design Exhibition. This marks the end of the project as a university assignment, and it will now continue as an extra-curricular project focusing on manufacturing ahead of the World Championships in August.
