South Dakota State University Human Powered Vehicle Team

02/10/2024

Thanks, Bluestem Bicycles, for helping us out! We appreciate your excellent work!

05/02/2023

A nice article on how we did at the ASME e-HPVC competition in Virginia!

Engineering students at South Dakota State University pedaled their way to a third-place finish in the national e-Human Powered Vehicle Challenge at Liberty University, Forest, Virginia. The contest is sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and attracted 15 teams. The University o...

04/15/2023

After a long hiatus due to the lack of in-person ASME competitions, the South Dakota State University Human Powered Vehicle Team is back in action!

Nine students from the team (none of whom have ever attended an HPVC event) traveled with advisor Dr. Michna to the 2023 ASME e-HPVC competition in Forest, VA, this weekend.

The Thunder Jack passed technical inspection this afternoon, and the team is excited for the endurance race, which will take place tomorrow morning!

09/16/2020

We would like to thank all of our sponsors last year for their support over the 2019-2020 academic year. Even though we were unable to physically compete, we had a successful season and competed in the online competitions offered through ASME. We learned a lot and are excited to continue growing as a team and are very appreciative for the support we received.

Our 2019-2020 Donors:
3M
RFA Engineering
SDSU ME Department Head
J. Lohr College of Engineering
AGCO
Valley Queen Cheese
Twin City Fan
ASME Nebraska
Bluestem Bicycles
Paragon Machine Works
Power2max Cycling Inc.

Thank you for all of your support!

08/26/2020

We are so excited to start this 2020-2021 season! Safety is one of our top priorities as we continue to follow guidelines set forth by the CDC and SDSU. For any of those interested, we are also hosting these meetings through zoom to make it available for all

Please contact Seth Friesen: [email protected]

05/22/2020

Check out the story about our performance in this year's virtual contest!

Learn more about Engineering students rebound for virtual contest at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD.

04/25/2020

The results are in! We placed 3rd in the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Competition North and 2nd in South! Thanks to all of you who supported our team this year!

04/25/2020

Please check out our Design Presentation video, which is now available on the ASME E-Fest YouTube Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv2O5qJoPtM

Our in-person competitions were cancelled this year, but we are still competing in the Virtual Human Powered Vehicle Competition where scores are based totally on design. There are two components, the written Design Report and the Design Presentation Video.

03/04/2020

The foam for the first half-fairing mold has been cut on the CNC router and glued together! Now the fun really begins - sanding the mold to get the finish as smooth as possible. Wish us luck!

02/25/2020

The frame is coming together!

This year, we decided to do all of the frame fabrication ourselves (in the past, we have had a generous sponsor cut all of our frame pieces). We've gotten a lot of great experience cutting and coping tubes, bending tubes, building jigs to ensure that angles and distances are correct, and welding. This year's bike is built from 4130 chromoly tubing for the first time. This stronger steel allows us to use thinner wall thickness tubing, saving weight in our completed vehicle. In the pictures, you can see our frame master, Seth Friesen. Seth has been putting tons of hours into the frame project. Great work, Seth!

02/06/2020

Today's featured team member is Sara Broad. Sara is a Mechanical Engineering sophomore from Lincoln, Nebraska. She was the JEC Representative for the team last year and holds the position of Secretary this year. Sara hasn't held any official engineering positions yet, but has some very interesting stories of her past three years as a lifeguard for a city pool.

After graduation, she hopes to work for Disney Imagineering so she can design and create future Disney theme park attractions. Another interesting fact about her is that she is a Theatre minor and hopes to combine this knowledge with her engineering experience for when she enters the workforce.