When RISD design students teamed up with engineering majors from Brown University in a fall 2008 studio, they used their combined problem-solving skills to tackle a growing global problem: the need for affordable, flexible transportation powered by renewable fuel sources. An outgrowth of the eMotive project – an ongoing collaboration between RISD Industrial Design faculty members Khipra Nichols BID ’78 and Michael Lye ’96 ID and Brown Engineering faculty Chris Bull – the Out of Gas! studio focused on the needs of urban commuters, using Providence as a test case.
Lye and Bull team-taught the studio, which brought together 14 students from RISD and 14 from Brown to explore “where and how industrial design and engineering intersect” in the context of a real-world problem, Bull explains. In addition to reaping the benefits of complementary expertise, the students took full advantage of both institutions’ specialized facilities: the metal, wood and model shops at RISD, and the Prince Engineering Lab at Brown, which offers access to CNC and rapid prototyping technology.
The simple parameters of the assignment informed the straightforward approach taken by the students, as well as their ultimate objective to produce a vehicle that “provides all you need and nothing more.” The vehicle was to be powered by a small (7 HP) biodiesel engine, which runs on renewable resources such as vegetable oils and burns cleaner than conventional diesel; it would need to move multiple people plus cargo; and overall, in order to be appropriate for its city context, it would need to have “many of the capabilities of a car with the footprint of a motorcycle,” Lye explains. As an additional challenge, the group was asked to come up with a model that could be adapted for use in the developing world, by fitting an appropriate body to the same chassis.
To accomplish its ambitious goal within the intense 12-week schedule, the class broke into seven specialized subgroups: chassis, body, drive train, suspension, controls, human interface and business/design management/presentation. While the chassis group worked in SolidWorks and then used real materials to design and test a structure that was shorter than a Smart Car, the body designers blended elements of their 15 initial concepts into an airy, minimalist form, guided by the principle of “harmony through function.” The drive train engineers settled on a continuous variable transmission, which eliminates the need to shift; Craigslist provided many of the materials needed by the suspension team as it tackled the challenge of building an operational system. The controls group devised a simple mechanism that gathers throttle, brake and horn controls, eliminating the need for pedals – a priority of the human interface team, which focused on seats and storage. The business/design management group brainstormed to come up with the vehicle’s name – the Coda – and generated a business plan, a class blog, a website and a visual brand identity.
A final critique at the end of the semester gave the groups a chance to present, discuss and test-drive the results of their labor. With the basic mechanical elements, seats and controls in place (but lacking the finished body styling), a full-scale working model showed the distinctive three-wheel design: one wheel in the rear and two in the front for improved stability. The rear-mounted engine leaves space in the front for a storage compartment, and upholstered seats allow the driver and passenger to sit comfortably side-by-side. Also on view was a small-scale body prototype, its sleek form easy to imagine zipping around city streets.
The presentation concluded with a test drive along the canal behind RISD’s Industrial Design building. Though it’s not yet able to reach its theoretical 45 mph or carry two people up steep College Hill, the vehicle “did move under its own power and there were no major, insurmountable problems,” Lye reports. Students enthusiastic to continue work on the vehicle will iron out the kinks and make modifications during Wintersession and spring semester, with the ultimate goal of testing their concepts with a finished working prototype. It may only have gone “30 feet or so” on its maiden voyage, Lye adds, but as an example of what can be accomplished through cross-disciplinary collaboration and well-orchestrated teamwork, the Coda is already more than the sum of its parts.
