The “Electri-car” project is modernized by Eng. Yasmeen AlShawwaf, Eng. Du’aa AlKuban, Eng. Dalal AlSulaiman, and Eng. Dalal AlBahwah from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kuwait University under the supervision of Dr. Jassim Baroun. This innovation aims at changing the method of rotation used in cars.
Eng. AlShawwaf declares that main goal of this project is to apply a theory in the field of mechanical engineering using the control handle to change the speed of the rear wheels to drive the vehicle to the front or to the back; this should equalize the speed of both wheels. However, rotating the car needs one of the wheels to go faster than the other or one goes front and the other goes back.
Eng. AlKuban states that “Electri-car” is a three wheels car, single passenger kind of a car with two wheels at the back and one in the front. The vehicle works with two electrical engines, one on each rear wheel. The back wheels are parallel and are attached to the main body of the vehicle. Thus, the movement of the vehicle is controlled by the speed difference of the two wheels, which leads to rotate toward the slower wheel. In addition, there are seven levels for speed and the vehicle can go up to 70 km/h.
Eng. AlSulaiman says that the advantages of the project is the ability of the vehicle to turn 360 degrees. Also reducing the rotation diameter or equalizing it to zero and the ability to control speeds.
Eng. AlBahwah adds that one of the obstacles they faced was the lack of materials to use for building the project. The other obstacle was the incapability of KUs workshop to build the project due to lack of suitable equipment, and that they were lucky enough to find a private workshop to help them with the project.
The engineers have high hopes to develop the project scientifically, and that was the main reason behind the participation in “Makerfaire Kuwait”. It was expected for the project to take two months to prepare, but thanks to the team cooperation and work distribution it took only one month.