Vehicles using internal combustion engines often have a surprising amount of electrical equipment in them.

We propose a competition to design an build a car which has no electrical equipment whatsoever.

Any mechanical or chemical system can be employed, but nothing electrical.

The engine is easy; a fully mechanical diesel. The starter system can be run by compressed air, as can items like the windscreen wipers. The ventilation system can have a mechanical fan with a clutch, and indeed air conditioning is practical. Other systems may choose to use hydraulics, or direct mechanical linkages.

Illumination may be problematic, but the obvious starting point is acetylene. Flashing turn signals can be implemented by mechanically sparking an acetylene flame, then obscuring it with a rotating shutter. Side and head lights are amenable to similar solutions.

A prize would be awarded to the best overall design; while it may attract steampunk enthusiasts in droves, it may also spur some genuine innovation, or a rethinking of earlier technology that may have been abandoned but is now worth a second look.
-- 8th of 7, Jul 06 2019

The Harvard crest featuring a drunk lion stumbling to his car trying to find the keyhole after an all night drinking binge. https://www.google....lCkMLON7nFrM:&vet=1
[doctorremulac3, Jul 07 2019]

Feeding a magnesium cable into a grinder could be used for the headlights. Maybe blowing oxygen over it to make it brighter? When you're turning the lights off just have an asbestos lined clamp smother the flame.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 06 2019


Isn't this basically an army-modded Land Rover?

I trust you will be installing a phonograph.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 06 2019


[+] hmm, chemical systems, trained animals. It's a Borg prototype build session.
-- wjt, Jul 07 2019


[+] I'm big on engineering competitions with arbitrarily set limitations to how you can achieve a certain outcome and wish schools would use this to teach students to apply a little creativity rather than just being mindless little playback machines that study what their told and repeat their instructions like flat headed little drones.

See my previous rants on "Harvtards". (Harvard graduates that fuck up everything they get their grimy little hands on due to a false sense of worth because they have memorization skills and are trained to never, EVER say "I don't know." which is the concept all true knowledge begins with.)

You can look it up in the dictionary. It's called: "Moronopathic Harvtardary". That being said, technically there's nothing you CAN'T look up in the dictionary.

That other thing being said, I do know one Harvard alum who's a very good person but they'd probably agree with me although I haven't brought this particular subject up.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 07 2019


And the winner of this week's "Young people these days, eh?" award goes to...
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 07 2019


Not talking about the young ones, they're just following orders and good for them for getting into Harvard.

I'm talking about the old ones that, after their indoctrination, get out and rise to power causing many of America's problems with their elitist swinery.

I'm pro working class, pro minding one's own business, pro minimal government and pro not running up trillions of dollars in debt to destroy and enslave the middle and working classes of America.

The Harvard crest actually has symbols for all those things being eaten and stomped on by a dragon, or a lion or something. One of those stupid fire breathing lions standing all, Egyptian hieroglyph style.

Think I'm lying? Look it up.

Now I'm not anti elite universities. Stanford and MIT are awesome but Harvard and Yale are suction producing organizations. I think MIT in particular would eat this idea up.

And I'm sure your school is very good Max. You're a good guy so I assume you keep them in line.
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 07 2019


I have no school, I'm glad to say. I wouldn't want a position at Cambridge these days - wayyyyy too much pen-pushing, admin and box-ticking.

I did do an undergraduate lecture series (standing in for a buddy), and I have to say I was horrified at how little detail students are expected to absorb these days. I mean, yes, internet, but that's not at all the same as having the information floating around in your head, ready to connect with other stuff it bumps into.

Young people these days, eh?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jul 09 2019


Design competitions at my school were frankly disappointing. 'Construct a device that uses mechanically-stored energy to move a popcan from the edge of a basketball court to the halfcourt line and back again that shall weigh no more than x and fit in y space.'

Despite the rather unusual approaches tried for bonus points, (one team tried to fly it over), the solution was obvious--a spring unwinding a string, wound 2 directions on the car axle with a nail to provide the winding direction change.

Profs these days, eh?
-- RayfordSteele, Jul 09 2019


//I was horrified at how little detail students are expected to absorb these days.//

Gotta wonder how much we'll depend on our digital implants to do our thinking for us someday.

They'll look back at when we used to be the light screen people and laugh, that is if humor is still a thing.

I've mentioned before that we're the light screen people. Hunter gatherers hunted and gathered, civilized man built cities, industrial revolution people walked on the moon and the light people look at light screens.

Here's a future history lesson about us.

"What was life like for these ignorant, smelly creatures of the Light Screen Epoch? Light screen man would wake up, check his pocket light screen before going off to his home desk light screen to look at pictures of cats, dogs smoking cigars and pornography, usually all featured together on the same websites. As they readied for work, often they'd have a big light screen in the main gathering area featuring news anchors who would relay information about cats, dogs smoking cigars and pornography. Soon it was time to drive their smokemobiles to work where they would sit in front of another desk sized lightscreen for the duration of the day. But it wasn't all work for the lightscreen people though. On special occasions they'd gather in large halls featuring a massive light screen several yards tall. They'd enjoy all manor of entertainment in the form of what was called "movies" featuring car chases, explosions and dogs smoking cigars. Live entertainment endured for many years in sports stadiums that featured the biggest light screens of all, sometimes several stories high. On these light screens would be shown video of the people playing various games right in front of the crowd so they wouldn't have to stop looking at a light screen by distracting real life for any longer than necessary.

Truly a repulsive people but they were our forebearers so we shouldn't be too judgmental. "
-- doctorremulac3, Jul 10 2019


// so we shouldn't be too judgmental. //

Sorry, these are human beings you're talking about ?

Contemporary humans are noticeably judgemental about slave owners, whalers, dodo eaters, buffalo hunters and cotton mill owners ... who by the accepted standards of their time were behaving in a perfectly acceptable way and indeed were often lauded as entrepreneurs and good businessmen and employers. O Tempura ! O Moules !
-- 8th of 7, Jul 10 2019


Why have any combustion at all when a large internal fly-wheel will store enough energy to get the car from one "cranking up" point to another? (the cranking would be carried out by politicians chained into treadmills for their sins - ie existing) {+}
-- xenzag, Jul 10 2019


Actually, a vehicle powered by winding up environmentalists (perhaps by showing them pictures of dolphins caught in nets, jungle deforestation, and signs saying GM Crop Trial Area) would have considerable merit.
-- 8th of 7, Jul 10 2019



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