Designers and engineers have been set the challenge by the Product Innovation Congress, the BLOODHOUND SSC Project, Altair and GrabCAD of designing a steering column and wheel for the Bloodhound supersonic car (SSC).
The BLOODHOUND SSC project was launched in 2006 by Richard Noble with the aim of creating a jet and rocket powered car that could break the 1,000 mph world land speed record.
Over the past seven years many companies, engineers, designers and students have dedicated time and effort in designing and manufacturing various aspects of the car. The end result is a slender, 14 metre long and seven tonne car that can produce more than 135,000 horsepower – more than six times the power of all the Formula 1 cars on a starting grid put together!
The aim is to race the car in the next couple of years but before that time there are a few components within the car that still need to be designed. One of which is the steering column and wheel. That is where you come in.
Unlike your average car, the driver (in this case Andy Green, a fighter pilot from the Royal Air Force) will be mostly horizontal, looking forward. The steering wheel and column will be the only control between him and the car, which will be rocketing across the desert at Mach 1.4.
To help in your design, all the requirements and rules can be found on the GRABCAD challenge page. Additionally, the vehicle’s technical specifications and CAD drawings can be downloaded here.
The jury consists of our very own Al Dean along with Anthony Norton of Altair, Will Manning, conference director of Product Innovation Congress (PI 2013), Kaspar Kiis of GrabCAD and Mark Chapman, chief engineer of BLOODHOUND.
There are just 21 days left until 31 January 2013 for you to submit your entries to GRABCAD. There are some very cool prizes on offer with the winners being announced at PI 2013 in Berlin on 19 February 2013.
We’ll be following the progress of the challenge including featuring an interview on the blog with the BLOODHOUND SSC’s chief engineer Mark Chapman.
Good luck!
The BLOODHOUND SSC racing a Eurofighter Typhoon
