and

Sunday 14th September 2008

at Bedford

with the team members,

Holly, Hannah, Alice, Gabriella, Vicki, Jasmin, Jodie, Jess, Nicole, Fleur, Dheyna.

A Ford Greenpower Project

by students from

The Colchester County High School

for Girls.

The Aim

To build a battery powered car and to compete with it against other teams.

The Team

Team Leader - Mr Stuart Walsh

Team Members - to be announced

The History

We first entered the competition in 2004 with our car, The Pink Panther. We learned a lot from the experience and for the 2005 series, we decided to revamp our 2004 car and to rename it 'Greased Lightning'. With a few minor modifications, we used the same car for 2006, starting with our first qualifying meeting at Detling on Sunday 25th June.

With the benefit of knowing the faults of the 2004 car, we made some major changes. We used materials that were easy to obtain at reasonable cost. The chassis was aluminium and wood and the body in lightweight plastic. The wheels were donated to us by CYCLE KING, a local bicycle shop. The steering wheel we made ourselves, the column came from a go-kart supplier, the seat was taken from an old plastic chair, the brakes from a bicycle - and all the other parts were purchased from local suppliers. We experimented with water cooling and fitted temperature, speed and voltage gauges, with provision for two way radios for communication between driver and pit crew.

We then started working on a completely new car which we first raced in July 2007. This was given the original name of the Pink Panther, lighter, sleeker and faster.

In September 2008, a third car was added to the team, The Phoenix. This was wholly built by one of the student's parents. This car was used instead of our first car, to enable it to be assessed and tested. It had a number of design features that were new and, whilst it didn't do so well, lessons were learned and the future looks good.

Also, in 2008, we started work on a third CCHS car of our own making, still keeping the aluminium chassis, but much lighter. More of that to follow......

 The Performance

FIRST ATTEMPT 2006

On Sunday 25th June 2006 we competed at the Detling heats. The weather was fair, about 20 degrees, and the organisation, as is usual from the Greenpower bods, superb. We were competing against twelve other cars, although only nine cars were able to race. The tried and tested and very experienced AON cars and team led the field all day. Some of the other competitors we had seen before. We were the only girl team. Very early on we had a puncture, which probably cost us 20 laps with the time it took to make a repair. Whether or not we did enough to qualify for the final we do not know but we hope to have another go at Bedford later in the year.

 

	We were achieving 1 minute 20 second laps, although some of our less experienced drivers slowed up on the tight corners and a couple had a bumpy landing on the bends, destroying a few straw bales. We were geared for around 22mph and were certainly not the slowest car there.
	Coming up to the tight one with a view of the bales that were put to good use.

 We should like to acknowledge and thank our sponsors, without whom, we could not have done this.

CYCLE KING

who donated wheels for our cars,

 H R Owen

for cash sponsorship in 2004

Hutton Construction

who donated wheels in 2004

Man Financial

for essential funding

Michael Carey Services

for machining work.

To contact us, please go

HERE

Last updated 24th September 2008