With the increased growth of urban areas, as well as constraints in real estate, the importance of vehicle sharing systems is increasing as evidenced by transformation to a sharing economy. Students will work closely together to design a solution to address transportation needs and global challenges for a target market. The goal of this Reconfigurable Shared-Use Mobility Systems (RSMS) project challenge involves designing and building a vehicle prototype that can be efficiently reconfigured for a variety of passenger vehicle (1-5 passengers) and cargo delivery needs.
Impact
By 2030, urban areas will be the home for more than 60% of the world’s 8 billion people. Cities will be so dense that the place for the traditional car and private vehicle ownership will rapidly decline. With the increased growth of urban areas, as well as constraints in real estate, the importance of vehicle sharing systems is increasing. A purpose built vehicle designed to be used in various sharing models could be an attractive mobility alternative in growing dense urban environments.
Student Experience
Students from six universities in four countries collaborated to design and build a reconfigurable vehicle for shared-use. Weekly video conferences ensured an excellent international engineering collaboration that led to a constant exchange of useful information. Within each university, students worked on various assemblies or sub-assemblies. Students from different universities also used various social media means to communicate outside the formal video conferences and exchange ideas and solutions. They contacted the mentors or faculty advisers when they did not find acceptable solutions. The mentors or faculty advisers gave them ideas or proposed guidelines that either helped them or made their work easier to finish. The participation to the annual competitions (in Brazil and USA) gave students the possibility to know each other personally, to work together to perform the last second updates and finalize the prototype (after the first year) and the finished product (after the second year). They become friends, and some of them continued to communicate after the end of the project. Furthermore, students and faculty advisers were close during the development of the project.
Countries
Canada, Germany, Mexico, United States of America
Impact
Research, Education, Global Partnerships
Institutional Partner(s)
University of Cincinnati, Georgia Institute of Technology, ITESM CEM Mexico, RWTH Aachen University Germany, University of Toronto
Community Partner(s)
Industry Partner(s)
General Motors Co. US, Autodesk, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle, Siemens
Key Outcomes
Publications, Spin-offs
Sponsorship
Foreign
Sponsorship Details
General Motors Co. US provided funds for designing and building the prototype, as well as traveling funds for participating students to the annual forums and competition. Other sponsors include software packages such as: Altair, Ansys, CD-adapco, DCS, dSpace, Gamma Technologies, Mathworks, MSC Software, iSight, Synopsys, Stratasys, Wacom
