‘Rose Pedal’ Team Going Down Under as U.S. Collegiate Champs

Thursday, April 27, 2017
HPV Team

Off To The Races: The Rose Pedal vehicle earned strong marks for technical innovation, overall design, speed and endurance to win this year’s E-Fest North American East regional.

The Human Powered Vehicle Team will challenge some of the world’s best cyclists and vehicles after pedaling to victory in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ E-Fest North America East competition. The team is now preparing to compete in the premiere Pedal Prix global racing experience on May 6-7 near Loxton, Australia.

A series of consistently strong performances placed Rose-Hulman ahead of 33 college teams at the East Coast regional April 21-23 at Tennessee Tech University, a competition that included engineering programs from throughout the world.

This was the team’s 13th victory in ASME’s annual competitions.

The vehicle’s active lean control mechanism took top honors in the innovation category, while the vehicle’s overall sleek design ranked second after being reviewed by a panel of professional engineers, ASME members and cycling experts. The control mechanism automatically brings the vehicle–nicknamed Rose Pedal–back to the upright position whenever it becomes unstable or has been pushed over. This innovation was designed as part of a senior-year capstone project by mechanical engineering students Zeke DeSantis, Drew Miner and Ben Stevens. Junior David Sampsell assisted the group in making the project presentation.

On the race track, junior mechanical engineering student Ariella Halevi posted the second-fastest time in the women’s speed race, while Sampsell was third in the men’s event. Then, both cyclists joined with junior mechanical engineering student Nico Price, DeSantis and Miner to place sixth in the 2.5-hour endurance race.

These performances gave Rose-Hulman a two-point edge over second-place South Dakota State University. Ohio University was third, University of Wisconsin finished fourth and University of Akron came in fifth. Other U.S. teams competing included Clemson University, University of Florida, University of Oklahoma, Colorado State University, Olin College of Engineering and Missouri University of Science & Technology. International teams came from Canada, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico and Egypt.

The Pedal Prix will be the Rose-Hulman team’s first global competition. Six team members will be traveling to Australia for the challenge. Follow all of the action in the Pedal Prix here.