With our continued support with the University of Liverpool Velocipede (ULV) Team, by providing tiny discrete cameras and Raspberry Pi’s the team are able to achieve greater aerodynamics by removing areas of wind resistance and drag.
The cameras are mounted on a small stem on the roof of the enclosed bicycle and connects to a screen inside the capsule, which not only relays the current view but is capable of recording the journey too on to the Raspberry Pi’s SD card. On the stem are 2 cameras to provide redundancy in case of failure should anything happen.
Tom Parker from the ULV team writes
“I am pleased to say, the ARION2 velocipede bicycle broke the British Land Speed Record in both the Male and Female categories, taking the title from its predecessor, the ARION1. The team was very happy with both of these achievements and returned having fulfilled their aims.
Both riders put in a tremendous amount of work and commitment to obtain these titles, with our male rider crashing at approximately 71mph. Thanks to the teams focus on safety within our design constraints, our male rider was able to walk away unscathed from the incident. However, the accident had left the bicycle in an unride-able condition. This unfortunately prevented our female rider from completing her last run, a fact hard to swallow for the team as her previous run had broken the British Land Speed Record and came just 4 mph short of the World Record.
This year’s race event provided the team with valuable lessons, both in an engineering discipline as well as resource management, skills that the team will take forward and develop further at next year’s race event. The senior members of the team all successfully graduated earlier this year and have now moved on to graduate jobs, PhD’s and other challenges. The junior members of the ARION2 team have now stepped up to fill their shoes and are currently in the detailed design and manufacture stage of the ARION3.
With the great performance of the project this year, the team is focusing on optimising certain aspects of the bicycle in an iterative process based upon the ARION2’s success. We feel confident in our abilities to improve the bicycle and beat the records set by the ARION2, perhaps even securing a World Record.
It goes without saying that without the help and support of our sponsors, this project would be no more than a theoretical venture and so we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone one who helped the team over the past two years. With our aims set on improving upon these achievements, we would be grateful if you would continue your sponsorship with the project to help ensure we can compete at the race event in September 2017.”
