MSE student Aidan Muller talks to the Toronto Star about the U of T Human-Powered Vehicle Design Team’s latest record-breaking project
Photo: U of T Human Powered Vehicle Design Team (HPVDT) 2011-2012 with Aidan Muller (MSE 1T4; back row, fourth from right) and team faculty advisor, MSE Department Chair, Professor Jun Nogami (back row, first right); photo: U of T HPVDT
August 26, 2011
Aidan Muller (MSE 1T4) and 11 of his fellow teammates, all students from the U of T Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, are headed to Battle Mountain, Nevada, on September 21, 2011 to compete in the World Human-Powered Speed Challenge.
At the competition, teams from around the world will race their independently-built bicycles in a 200 metre zone, after drivers are given eight kilometres to build momentum. Their hope is to break speed records for human-powered vehicles, and be crowned number one in the world.
The current speed record to break is 133 km/h. Last year, the U of T HPVDT team set the men’s college world speed at 102 km/h and the women’s college speed record at 89 km/h, with a different bike.
“In the car you have unlimited energy,” Muller says. “We’re really about pushing the bounds of what a human can do.”
Aidan and the U of T HPVDT were featured in the Toronto Star and the Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet Show (video: 3:30) in the fall of 2011.