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This article was originally submitted by Muhammad Hashir
What is the Shell Eco-Marathon?
The Shell Eco-Marathon (SEM) is an international competition where students compete to build the most fuel-efficient car. With a legacy of 35 years, participants come in from all around the world to compete in two vehicle-categories, namely, Urban and Prototype, based on vehicle’s shape.
These are further classified based on the power source such as battery-electric, hydrogen fuel, and internal combustion amongst other popular sources.
Team HammerHead and its Achievements:
Team HammerHead is Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute’s official, student-run SEM team founded in 2009 by a group of talented individuals. Annually it participates in the prototype battery-electric category.
The team also pioneered participation in such international competitions, being followed by multiple Pakistani teams who achieved distinctions in their respective events. Team HammerHead holds the top three highest mileages achieved by any Pakistani Team at the Shell Eco-Marathon.
Our Past Achievements:
- Top 6 achieving a mileage of 211 km/kWh (2014)
- Top 6 with an unbroken Pakistani record mileage of 311 km/kWh (2017)
- Shell Dream Car Challenge Winner for our design innovation on steering systems – adding a tilting mechanism to make more efficient turns at high speed (2015)
What we achieved this year and what we are doing currently:
Unfortunately, the SEM took to a virtual competition this year due to COVID-19, taking most of the technical competing aspects away, including mileage. Nonetheless, HammerHead successfully developed Pakistan’s first-ever carbon fibre monocoque car chassis. Weighing in at just 23kg, it is lighter than the best teams at the competition who currently weighs in at around 25kg. It is just shy of the world record of 20kg and raises our mileage to 650 km/kWh.
A monocoque frame is a design that combines the chassis (lower part), to which the engine and wheels are attached, with the shell (body of the car) achieving a greater strength to weight ratio. Our current design incorporates a monocoque frame design constructed with a composite carbon material reducing its weight to nearly half of our previous mild steel design’s 40kg.
With the shape of our new design, were also able to decrease our coefficient of drag to about 0.12 bringing us closer to the world record of 0.075.
This design was a collective effort from all of our team.
This year, Team HammerHead also won Shell’s ‘Race for Your Money’ challenge, a local idea competition with the winner receiving a sponsorship deal. Team HammerHead developed a new idea for enhancing fuel efficiency using Artificial Neural Networks – Deep Learning to predict faults and provide the driver with real-time feedback of component conditions, optimum driving speeds, and optimum racing lines. This concept allowed us to secure a sponsorship deal with Shell.
Team HammerHead aims to be the champion at Shell Eco-Marathon 2021. We are continually improving our design, perfecting the design tolerances keeping mind the manufacturing capabilities available in Pakistan. We also plan on replacing most of the metallic components of the car chassis with carbon fibre parts to bring our weight even lower and achieving an even better mileage.
Meet the team!
Muhammad Afaq (Team Captain) – Brings the team together and ensures project completion.
Muhammad Junaid Javed (Team Manager) – Takes care of all internal and external affairs.
Roshan Rehman (Communications Manager) – Handles all of our campaigns.
Muhammad Zikriya (Operations Manager) – Looks after internal operations.
Danish Sajjad (Technical Head) – Responsible for the technical systems in the car.
Ayesha (Electrical Head) – Responsible for the electric system of the car.
