Kaar: Of continuity and [something that means 'building upon what's already there']

I happened to visit the facebook group of Shell Eco Marathon Asia one of these days, and getting straight to the point, I noticed that at least five teams, in a wannabe attempt to publicize their team or their vehicle, have posted the link to their respective facebook pages. All very well, but...what really caught my eye was the fact that two of these teams were from Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, while one each were from University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, and Pakistan Navay Engineering College Karachi. Ok, this didn't catch my eye. This did: these teams appear to be totally unrelated to the ones that participated last year (2010), which in turn seemed totally unrelated to the ones that participated the year before that.

It appears that these guys are...well, just following their whims, aspiring only to participate in an 'international event'; there appears to be a lack of general direction in which a vehicle, a technology or an idea gets gradual but constant nourishment in the longer run.

But then again, if everyone would have been doing it, we wouldn't be so unique. And here I go with the kaar-dogma once again...

so lets quit while we can. You get the point, right? :-)

[Edit: removed a picture of Kaar's design; have no idea what I was thinking when writing the post originally]

Technical Submission

Never knew designing was such hectic work. Let's heave a sigh of relief then.

*Sigh of Relief*

Sigh of relief is heaved.

Now then, the technical submissions for Kaar and Primus were made yesterday. They were most probably in time as well. But this, by the way, is semi-unofficial. Which is less official and more unofficial than something really official. For which you would have to check out the EMENENTS website.

Apologies for wasting my time.

Design Submission

Design Elements submitted today...normal transmission expected to resume soon :-)

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EMENENTS

Of Sleep and Slumber

Recruitment. Publicity. Hype. Crap like that. And turns out, we are sleeping.

We really are. So if you were thinking we were too busy to post, you were wrong. Which brings the spotlight back to our malingering.

Maybe hollow words will reinvigorate us now. Apologies for the dull post. We have had it coming.

The Case for an Electric Car

Ten. That's the number of hours of load-shedding The Nation says that Karachiites were protesting against today (12th October).
Five. That's the amount, in thousands, of Megawatts that Pakistan is facing a shortfall of.
Thirty-two. That's the amount in billion, of dollars, some report by some organiztion claims Pakistan needs to put in the energy sector to be able to meet demands uptil 2020.


Ok, so I am not good at this sort of dramatization, but you get the picture. Right?


In short, Pakistan is facing a gargantuan shortfall of electricity. And you must be wondering, what's wrong with this guy...carrying out a bloody propaganda in favor of an electric car, while giving stats against it.

That's how you define a nutter. But we aren't talking about me.

We are talking about the fact that while Pakistan does meet about 75% of its electricity requirements (15,000 MW production against 20,000 MW demand), and about 40% from renewable sources (8,000 MW from hydel), Pakistan can meet only about 15-20 % of its petroleum requirements. The rest is made up from a hefty import bill. About $12 Billion on petroleum and petroleum products.

The figures are staggering. And yes, I have been reading a newspaper article regarding our country's energy deficit.

But my point is that petroleum = bad. Electricity from renewable sources is good. And as the oil crisis (which may not be a crisis at this time, but we all know its running out) takes shape, the future is all electric. Renewable Electric.

We are looking at a time when solar cells and windmills become ubiquitous. They have to become ubiquitous; there is no other way (lets just rule out sources that are toxic, harmful to the environment, etc, etc). And when they do, the electric car can become the chief mode of human locomotion.

So, electric car is good. Buy it.

No...don't buy it. Wait for us to make it, optimise it, test it and bring it to market. That can take...some years...or some decades...or maybe some centuries. Hang on.

Emenence at ARG Design Competition

Good thing about EMENENTS is that the third letter is not I. Which means that if we claim emenence somewhere that doesn't necessarily mean that we were good.

At the Design Competition's first round - the last post I made was as a member of ARG - we fielded one-and-a-half cars. Or something like that. That we would have twice the chances of going through was tertiary at best. The governing motivation I described earlier, but allow me to redundantly reiterate: one car (kaar) for the present/near future; the prototype, with its electric driveline, for the futuristic and renewable energy future.

What, or rather how, we want to proceed with the two concepts is basically to encapsulate the same spirit which ARG is supposed to work. Instead of teams making different cars, we are teams working on chassis, body and drivelines, etc, giving us more focus in the fields our members have chosen. By a few causal relationships, that I don't feel like explaining, and which might be self-explanatory all the same, more focus means better cars and better engineers.

Where the ARG has stumbled, as it has been difficult to ignite the group as members are an eclectic bunch with generally diverse aims, EMENENTS would not.

ONWARDS EMENENTS!