Introduction
Table of Contents
Getting Started
Communications
General Design
Chassis System
Drive Train
Shell/Body
Testing
Competition
Authors
Standards Index

Back To Iowa Electrathon

Introduction

Teachers who direct high school students in the construction of one-person electric vehicles wrote the Electrathon Advisor's Manual. It contains "how to" information to help beginning teams get started and experienced teams improve their skills. The construction sections (III - VI) include materials for beginning, intermediate, and advanced teams to allow advisors to choose the process that best suits their team's abilities. These "how to" articles are necessary to build a car, but "why" activities are needed to develop or "build" students. Understanding why some designs are better than others is the purpose of the curriculum (educational or learning?) activities in each section.

The curriculum activities provide the scientific, mathematical, and/or technical backgrounds needed to make choices about design and construction details. These activities can be used to bring real world examples into the classroom and motivate students to apply what they have learned to their car. Our goal is to have students understand WHY they have built their car one way instead of another. These students have truly benefited from the Electrathon program, and will in turn become highly productive members of our society.

Iowa Electrathon teachers began this handbook as a class project for graduate credit at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). The director of the project was Pat Higby, Iowa Electrathon Manager and Energy Educator at the Center for Energy & Environmental Education at UNI and member of the Board of Directors for Electrathon America. This handbook continues to be a work in progress. If you have corrections or additions, please contact Chris Horan at 319-273-3850 or Chris Horan