traction and power lessons

Harper Adams Residential – 2017 – Overview

Throughout the week the new year 10 learners took part in a range of educational and leisure based activities. The classroom lessons involved PSHE (Personal, social, health and economic), English, maths, science and engineering. The engineering lessons, which were taught alongside Harper Adams lecturers included vehicle configuration, traction and power, steering and suspension and chassis design.

Engineering lessons

The learners took part in two fantastic engineering based lessons today; traction and power and steering and suspension.

Traction and Power

The learners used battery powered model vehicles with front wheel drive, rear wheel drive and four wheel drive to experiment with. Firstly the learners had to weigh the vehicles using an electronic digital scale. The learners then had to measure the amount of drawbar pull of each vehicle on different surfaces; AstroTurf, smooth concrete, loose sand and rough concrete. The learners recorded and analysed the results from each test. Another experiment for the learners was to analyse other battery powered model vehicles as they climbed a 30 degree inclined ramp, both in front and rear wheel drive.

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Suspension and steering

The suspension and steering lessons were set in the soil barn at Harper Adams. Learners were taught different types of suspension and their purpose and also experimented with a small vehicle to analyse the turning circles with different configurations.

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Gear Ratios

The learners were given a wooden board with fixed steel pegs in different positions and various plastic gears. The learners had to put the gears onto the pegs to make a gear combination according to the provided chart and then fill in the results of revolution that the driven gear makes.

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Outdoor pursuits

The outdoor activities consisted of a climbing wall, Segway, archery and team building.

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