Thank You!

We want to give a big thank you to all our sponsors for their support and interest in us! Spiros has been a project filled with good times and with a lot of new knowledge obtained for all of us involved.

Once again, Thank you!

Results from Shell Eco Marathon

We are proud to inform you that Spiros finished in fifth place (out of 17 participants in the urban concept hydrogen class) with a result of 60 km/kWh, equivalent to about 530 km with one litre of fuel.

Last day at the race track

Spiros has now finished its third completed race, trying to beat its earlier scores of 41 and 48 km/kWh. The results are yet to be posted on Shell Eco-Marathons official home page. The team has at the moment one more attempt at racing, this will hopefully give a high enough score to make the top 3 in the class of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

First results!

Spiros has now completed its first competitive race at EuroSpeedwaz Lausitz! The results are yet to be posted by Shell Eco-Marathon, but will be added to the newfeed shortly.

Third day at the race track

At the end of Day 2, test driving gave great results. Spiros drove four laps around the testing track, stopping only when the test track closed for the day. New programming and minor changes done early this morning were supposed to be tested at the one and a half hour test time between 8.30 and 10.00 Day 3. However, delays and queues made Spiros just miss the cut, and any needed testing now has to be done on a smaller test track that doesn't enable driving tests at full speed.

During the competition, each team will get four chances to race in order to enable improvements. Parameters for the first race will be based on the good results from Day 2, except for a possible decrease in stoichoimetry. The first race goal is to complete a full race and receive a result. A few strategies have been decided that will later be added in order to push the limits further and improve the results. Hopefully Spiros will complete one or two full races today.

Spiros IV ready for test running

After having arrived safely at the race track EuroSpeedway Lausitz, Germany, the general work of Day 1 has been focused at getting access to the competition area, setting up the work station, making some minor changes to the system and getting an inspection clearance for making test runs. At the end of Day 1, there were still some minor changes to be done in order to pass inspection.

At the beginning of Day 2, Spiros quickly passed the inspection, and is now ready for test running. Further updates of the testing results will be posted throughout the week.

Parts of the Spiros IV team in the queue to inspection

The Roll Out

Here are some pictures from the roll out. The day was a success with a lot of people coming to see the cars and also with interest from the press. We want to take the chance to thank our sponsors for their interest and support. We were glad to see many of you at the roll out.

Roll Out May 18

On Wedneday May 18 we will have a roll out. Take the chance to meet this years team and see the car,Spiros, which we will compete with in Shell Eco Marathon. You will also have the chance to see Sleipner, the other car of KTH Eco Cars.

We will start at 15:00 at KTH-Millespottan (Valhallavägen 79)

Welcome!

Fuel Cell System

The fuel cell system for Spiros IV is now finished and we have started to mount it in the car. With Swagelok Sweden as sponsor, not only contributing with components but also with expert knowledge, Spiros IV has had the opportunity to optimize the fuel cell system in the best possible way. This does not only simplify the mounting in the car, but also gives Spiros IV a chance to lessen its weight thereby improving the results in the competition and the possibility to win awards.

The last two weeks most of the work has been focused on sharpening the way the system looks in the car. After the new end plates had been mounted by PowerCell Sweden AB the fuel cell stack with its surrounding components was tested. The fuel cell stack was connected to a DC/DC-converter and a super capacitor. The test showed good results and gave us information about different strategies of how the driving cycle should be during the competition in Germany.   

Testing

Time for some update.

Yesterday we tested the control system for the fuel cell stack in the lab and it was looking good. We have also started the mounting of the different subsystems in the car.

On tuesday it is time for the first test drive with the entire system put in place in the car. We will update the home page with pictures from the progress we are making shortly..

Driver Interface

One of the major changes of Spiros IV is a fully redesigned driver interface with a lot of new features. Among these are:

• On-line calculation of the most optimal route around the track in regard to fuel efficiency (or any other parameter). This route is presented to the driver on a map.
• Computer vision for improving GPS position fix and detecting vehicles.
• Voice warning system which will read out any errors or warnings the driver needs to be aware of (including if there are vehicles on the road ahead).
• Wireless data link which allows the pit crew to monitor vital vehicle parameters.

The optimization and computer vision requires an intense amount of computing power and therefore a big effort had to be put into finding a portable computer able to keep up with these performance requirements as well as other requirements (e.g. on size and weight).

The ASUS EP121 Tablet pc was chosen for the task because it vastly outperforms any other tablet on the market, performance and functionality wise. The Intel Core i5 processor and 4 GB of DDR3 RAM-memory in the ASUS EP121 makes it far more powerful than most other Windows-based tablets which utilize Atom processors. The ASUS EP121 is an optimal choice for demanding applications.

Note: The picture below are from an early testing version of the driver interface software which doesn’t include all planned functionality yet. 

Spiros IV Team

New Spiros Project Started

The Spiros project will continue in 2011

Spiros III Movie

See the movie of the project with clips from the testing, the roll out and the race.

See Spiros at LOVE2010

Spiros is going to attend at the exhibition LOVE2010. Which is a an event to celebrate the marriage between Crown Princess Victoria and Mr Daniel Westling.

Team members are going to show the car 7th and 8th of July.

Short movie

A short movie from the track is now on Youtube.

First day on track

Finally in at the track in Lausitz! First thing we need to do is the technical inspection. The car passes it except for a missing fuse. Tomorrow morning we are able to get one. Then we can do some test runs. Pictures from the first day press here.

Leaving for Germany

The buss has come and it’s time to load everything. All the stuff and the two cars have to fit in the trailer. See the pictures in the gallery.

Gallery

Spiros III have a new galley. Se loads of photos. Just press GALLERY in the menu above.

Roll Out

The wonderful weather brought many excited visitors to the Roll Out at Millespottan. Just after the presentation it was hard to get a glimpse of the new systems inside the car. While waiting to take a closer look, Vätgas Sverige provides us with refreshments.

In TV4s news broadcast (swe)

Test drive

Testing Spiros at Scania 25/4.

Roll Out 29/4

Hard working students

Work in progress

Spiros III

The new Spiros III team of 2010. Including ten mechatronics students, six chemistry students, two electrical students and one student from lightweight.

The main goal of the project is to participate in the Shell Eco Marathon held in Lausitz south of Berlin in Germany. This year's team is going to integrate a whole new the power train which is  based on hydrogen powered fuel cell. The fuel cell charges a super capacitor which drives an electrical motor.

Not the best, but at least the best design

The competition has come to an end with mixed feelings for the team. The last day didn't gave us  any further results due to some unlucky circumstances. The team worked hard all friday trying to get the HCCI engine to work but it still needs some more work and the HCCI crew never got up correct speed in the engine. We therefore changed back to the Honda.

We won the price for the best design which were something we had aimed for. Although we are not really satisfied with the results,  this award proves that we have a good design and a system that practically anyone can operate. To summarize, the car was great except for the engine.

Saturday started with a lot of phones calling, telling us that the start had been moved from 3 P.M. to . 10 A.M. This came as a big surprice for us and totally changed our plans for the day, We had planned to have the whole day to adjust the Honda engine to perform really well. Instead we only got about 20 minutes to get the car ready for the race. To accomplish that we had to connect the engine and reprogramme the software in the same time we were rolling out on the start.

Anyway, we are really happy that we actually made it across the finish line even though the planning got messed up. We wanted to have time to adjust lamda-values and change air intake to make the Honda as good as possible. As figured, with lack of time, this didn't happend and as a result todays run was just as bad as last time.

We are a bit dissapointed in the competition organisation that led to another poor performance. We are confident that the results had been better if we just had been able to stick to our original plan.

Now it's time to celebrate and we will report again when we are back in Sweden. We want to congratulate the Luleå team for their great achievement, even though they live in  "lappkåtor".

// For the last time in France, Team Spiros 2008

(the pictures are availible in full size, just click on them)

First day of competition

Yesterday was the first race day and the team was really excited to see Spiros taking off the starting line. The earlier practice run had been really good with 18 laps in just over an hour.

The first six laps were really good but then we noticed that the Honda-engine didn’t stop and never charged the super capacitor as much as it was supposed to do. Despite that, our driver managed to stay cool and passed the finish line as one of only 13 cars. The race took 53 minutes which was near perfect according to plans. After the finish the engine hood was dismounted since we suspected that the engine had been overheated in the sun. We then saw that the problem was the exhaust pipe which had fallen off.

After all, Spiros got a result of 89km per liter and placed 9:th of the day. We have been up all night changing to the HCCI engine. With just some minor things left we’re looking forward for today’s race.
 

First day on the track

Spiros performed 4 laps today at the trial runs at Nogaro. No other swedish teams succeded to the testdriving. Generally very few teams did testdrives today, the most of the teams were still assembling their cars.

There have been a lot of fuzz around Spiros today, since a lot of people showed interest in our soloutions and appearence. Media did some interviews and followed us the whole day, and they will continue to report from our stand the rest of the competition.

We're looking forward to the first day of competition tomorrow, and hope to perform a good result with the Honda-engine. We still have plans to use the HCCI-engine later on in the race.

One step closer...

Today we went to the new hotel a bit closer to the Nogaro track where we will stay for the rest of the week. It's a small and calm hotell in middle of nowhere on the French countryside.

We unpacked the car for the first time since the trip from Sweden and despite that the super capacitor had discharged a bit more than planned it worked fine. We worked all  day and long into the night with fine-tuning and some final touches.

Tomorrow we will check in on the competition area and will do our first "on-track" testing. We will also do the quality controls.

Here are som pictures from todays work on the car.

Arrival in Bordeaux

The team has just arrived in Bordeaux. We have had a nice day in the city and will take it "easy" here until tuesday. Maybe we will take Spiros out for a cruise in the city tomorrow... After all, it's an urban concept car.

We're leaving

The car started it's journey yesterday. The rest of the team will follow tomorrow by air. We will start with some nice days in Bordeaux before we go to Nogaro.

Pictures from the presentation

We had a great day with good weather and cheep beer. The car worked really good so we were able to drive it to the presentation and show it in motion. Click here to see more pictures.

If you click on them you can get them in full size (about 6MPx). These pictures can be used by media for Spiros related articles and for sponsors.

Event

New paint

This is a teaser of what the new paint looks like...

Article in Ny Teknik

In this week's Ny Teknik there is an article about Spiros HCCI-engine.

Read it here: www.nyteknik.se

HCCI Engine animation

This is a short animation which shows how the compression adjustment works on the HCCI Engine that will be used in Spiros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLHIgucStVA

New parts and some manufacturing

Some new parts has recently arrived. We have got the gear for the steering and the brakes.

We have also started with some manufacturing.

Pontus and Maja

One of the pedals

New solution for driver interface

A tablet PC will be used for displaying information to driver and to log data to optimize the drive cycle. The software is written in C# and it will communicate with the microcontrollers through USB.

Asus R2E with 7" screen
 

Startup screen at the moment.
 

Preliminary driver information screen
 

First parts from the waterjet

We have recently visited Kimtech in Järfälla to get some parts to the steering, brakes and wheel suspension. Kimtech develops and builds waterjet machines and was happy to help us.

Kristian and the waterjet machine
 

Some of the parts...

Homepage online

The new homepage is now online.