May 13, 2025 UW Human Powered Vehicle Club earns 1st in ASME competition Written By: Caitlin Scott Departments: Mechanical Engineering Categories: Students|Undergraduate A group of badger engineers traveled to North Carolina at the end of April to participate in the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge. The UW competition vehicle was already an award winner, earning the best prototype Smart Brothers award at the December 2024 senior design showcase, and they added to their achievements with a first place overall ASME finish! The eHPVC club team ended up on the podium for all three challenge events (1st in endurance racing, 2nd in drag racing, and 3rd in the design challenge) culminating in 1st overall amongst the eight schools participating. They also won Best Innovation award for their tilting mechanism redesign of the vehicle for the second time. Innovations “The main redesign of the bike, the decoupled tilting front end, allowed us to take the many corners on the track faster than any other team. We barely had to slow down for any of those turns, cutting lap times significantly. Leaning into the turns allows for a much tighter turning radius,” shared team member Atulonio Nil Basu. The endurance race is a 2.5-hour long race around a track built by the competition organizers to test different features of the bike, and to test the bike’s durability. The bike to complete the greatest number of laps wins the race. The UW bike completed exactly 50 laps and the bike that finished second ended with 41 laps. Resources During the manufacturing process the team had a lot of help from the faculty advisor Professor Xiaobin Xiong, and many of the TEAM Lab members such as Jeff Rappe, Mike Hughes, and Eric Ellefsen. Teekay Kowaleski was also a great resource for the team as he has manufactured bikes in the past for the club and gave useful feedback and ideas when needed. The eHPVC club represents an excellent opportunity to get involved with an engineering student organization on campus! Due to the smaller size of the club, newer members can immediately have a lot of ownership over projects they choose to work on. If interested in joining or learning more, please contact Hunter Kent at (608) 370-9778. Team members Sharon Wang, Teekay Kowalewski, Lileigh Nguyen, Atulonio Nil Basu, Joey Latawiec, Hunter Kent, Caleb Triebel, and Jake Jackan 4 senior design members that worked on the redesign of the bike for their senior design class (Jan 24 – Dec 24) Atulonio Nil Basu, Hunter Kent, Joey Latawiec, and Caleb Triebel Wisconsin team on stage with awards All the hardware Featured image: Caleb Triebel takes a turn on the bike. All images provided by Atulonio Nil Basu