At the recent Product Innovation Congress in Berlin, the jury of the GrabCAD challenge, to design a possible steering wheel for Bloodhound SSC, including our very own Al Dean, revealed the winning design.
The Bloodhound SSC is a project that we’ve been following over the years, not only as a feat of engineering and design but also as an education initiative aimed at inspiring young people to pursue a career in engineering (read the article in the recent March issue of Develop3D).
One really interesting aspect of this Bloodhound SSC project is that it’s not designed by a bunch of secretive engineers and designers who sit behind bolted doors; right from the start consultancies, manufacturers, universities and even school children have had a hand in designing the car.
In a recent interview with the Bloodhound SSC’s chief engineer Mark Chapman, he said ”With the core design team being so small we’ve always looked to industry and academia to provide a wealth of ideas and experience that we as a project can draw upon and form into a cohesive design.”
In a bid to find out what the design and CAD community would come up with if given the chance to design the steering wheel, GrabCAD launched the Bloodhound SSC Steering Wheel challenge.There were some interesting entries but the jury, which consisted of Al, Mark Chapman of Bloodhound, Anthony Norton of Altair, Will Milling of PI Congress and Kaspar Kiis of GrabCAD, eventually chose the winners based on how well they followed the rules and how easy it would be for the test-pilot Andy Green to handle the BLOODHOUND SSC at 1,000 mph.
1st prize – The winner of the challenge went to Anthony Michael, who received $1,000 in prize money. “This looks like a good solution. Lighter-weight than a lot of the others, nicely executed,” says Al Dean.
2nd Prize – Amir Tayyebi Moghaddam
3rd Prize – Chris Pollard
4th Prize – Stoianov
5th Prize – Thales de Oliveira Arouca
Honourable Mention – Ancoraimparo
“However there is no CAD files included we still think the entry is worth to mention. Interesting concept with very informative documentation included,” says Kaspar Kiis.
