Testing

Turn Radius Test

Using a protractor, the tires are set at 90 degrees and turned both left and right to test if they meet the minimum of a 60 degree change in angle for a 15 inch turn radius.

Figure 01 Front right tire set at 90 degrees on protractor

Figure 02 Outside Fluke Lab with tape marking 5 foot and 40 foot spaces

Speed Test

The speed test was ran both on two different surfaces, inside Fluke Lab on slick concrete and right outside of Fluke Lab on rough cement. Using a distance of 40 feet marked with tape and a stopwatch, 3 trials were ran on both surfaces. This test was conducted to see if the RC vehicle will meet its requirement of 20 miles per hour as a minimum.

This test had slight changes in its procedure as there were issues in the trials for the smooth surface inside Fluke Lab. The initial procedure gave a 5 foot acceleration area for the vehicle to get up to speed and while this was fine for the rough cement, the smooth concrete gave issue and the tire repeatedly lost traction. For the indoor tests, a modification to procedure was done to give the vehicle a 10 foot acceleration space to mitigate traction loss.

Figure 03 Inside Fluke Lab with tape marking 10 foot and 40 foot spaces

While the far end tape mark for 40 feet is difficult to see, tape markings are the same to markings shown in Figure 02 above. This run had the RC vehicle covering 40 feet in 1.25 seconds, converting to a speed of 21.8 miles per hour.

Figure 04 Speed test outside of Fluke Lab on rough cement.

Drop Test

Looking at previous years competitions, the drop test was chosen as a way to see that the RC vehicle can both survive a 2 foot drop that is expected to occur during the Baja race and that the chassis does not deflect more than 0.3 of an inch after the compression of the springs. Using a measuring tape, a wall in Fluke lab is marked at 2 feet and a video recorder is set up to record the vehicle upon impact of being dropped from the marked spot.

Figure 05 Inside Fluke Lab with tape marking 2 foot from the floor

Weight Test

While the weight test does not count towards vehicle testing, like the tests shown above, this test was necessary to record as there was a weight limit set in the requirements. As set at the beginning of the project, the vehicle was not to exceed more than 7 pounds including the battery. When set on a scale, the vehicle was shown in Figure 05 to only weigh in at 4 pounds and 8.5 ounces.

Figure 06 RC Vehicle weighing on scale at 4 lbs 8.5 oz.