Bamboo Electric Motorcycle Build

It works! Wooooo!

bambooelectric — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:39:25 +0000

Everything is all put together and wonderful and we rode it around today for the first time. Pictures and video to come.

Drivetrain Mounted!

bambooelectric — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:22:13 +0000

We have mounted the drive train and made the bike move under it’s own power. However, shortly after we shorted the controller during our rewiring process. So we have ordered a new controller and then the bike will finished! Here are some pictures of the bike and us working on it.

Frame Completed

bambooelectric — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 04:50:05 +0000

The frame is all set for mounting the drive train. Also, we road it around and it felt great!

Update on our mounting progress

bambooelectric — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:02:30 +0000

We finished both battery boxes out of pile wood, mounted the bottom plate, and we are expecting to have the motor mount in by tomorrow. The rear dropouts also came in the mail today, so we can get that rear triangle finally together. We used strap clamps to attach the bottom plate, which worked extremely well and took little effort.

A productive weekend…

bambooelectric — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:21:19 +0000

Prepare for a bit of an image dump, and then a progress update.

Here is some bamboo, cooling after being heat-treated in the oven:

Here we are wrapping the joints with twine soaked in epoxy:

And here we are with the frame almost completed (minus the rear triangle) vigorously testing its tensile strenth:

As you can see, we’ve come pretty far over the past week or so. We have been working almost nonstop on our project all through the long weekend; this was the most productive (and least relaxing) long weekend I’ve ever experienced. Our frame is almost done, and we are in the process of fabricating motor and battery mount points (about 50%) done with that. We’ve come a long way, but we have a lot left to do–namely, actually somehow synthesizing the motorcycle from all its constituent parts that we’ve put together over the past six months.

More updates to come.

GOGOGOGO!

bambooelectric — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:53:25 +0000

It’s crunch time, people.

We’ve got about two weeks left, and a ton of construction to do. Over the past week and a half we’ve obtained bamboo, heat treated it, and started construction of the frame. We’re a bit short on time, but pictures will be added to this post as they become available.

Standstill

bambooelectric — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:40:44 +0000

Depressing title, I know. We’ve been waiting for a response from multiple parties for almost two weeks now (Calfree, our bamboo supplier, and our mentors) and we can’t move forward until we hear from at least one of them. We’ve got like a month left, but I’m pretty sure that we can get this done with time to spare if these contacts come together.

Two Models

bambooelectric — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:11:08 +0000

We have been focusing on designing the frame now that we have a working drive train. We now have a detailed to scale SketchUp model and a physical 1/2 scale model made out of wooden dowels. Through the creation of these two models we realized that some of our joints will need reinforcement, and that increasing the diameter of the bamboo will also increase the size of our joints significantly. On the wooden model we used string and Elmer’s glue to simulate the twin and epoxy that we will use on the bike joints. Joints are one of our main concerns regarding the frame, because of the stress that the rider’s weight, and the stress of the motor, which will put a lot of stress on these joints. One possible upgrade to our frame that we are considering is to add two polls that connect from the front of the frame to the back fork. This should relieve some of the stress on both the joints and the other bamboo polls. We are almost done ordering or bamboo, and after that we should have almost all of the parts we need. We have a lot of used bike scraps that we will use for some of the bike parts that we can not make out of scratch.

Drive train… ENGAGED!

bambooelectric — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:53:37 +0000

Today was a very exciting day. We finally got our batteries in from China, and we were able to assemble our entire drive train! Aside from a short drama involving an uninvited spark, it all went very smoothly and we’re prepared to move ahead on the project. Here are a few shots from the first assembly:

Next week: A prototype frame!

The Batteries Are Here! Yaaaay!

bambooelectric — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:12:00 +0000

According to FedEx, the batteries were delivered to Mission Motors on Monday. We’re still waiting for conformation from our mentors, but we’re excited!