Hybrid Pedal Car

Our first “clean sheet” project is to build a human powered hybrid electric vehicle (aka pedal car) for use on and off road.  The vehicle is to be designed, engineered, and fabricated by a blended team of paid high school and college students along with paid and volunteer professionals. 

The main goal of this program will be to provide our student participants with structured design and engineering experience through a paid internship.    We would be attempting to take this project all the way from concept design to working prototype(s).  

While understanding our mission was clear and simple enough, enacting has been more of a challenge.  We have brainstormed ways to work with students for some months now.  We also carefully considered what the initial project should be, and a hybrid pedal car seemed like the most natural fit for our purposes.  It has all the major aspects of a vehicle design and build project, but with reduced costs and risks.  Many of the components will be off-the-shelf bicycle parts to make it easier to achieve a working prototype more quickly. 

Our approach is simple. We want to partner with educational institutions who have students interested in engineering and skilled trades, but perhaps have not received the exposure necessary to foster their interest.   TechTrades would then sponsor paid internships for selected students to work on a real engineering and fabrication project.

In tandem, we would need to partner with businesses who can provide either professional project mentors, equipment and/or funding for the build project.  The sponsoring business will get to donate to a project directly helping the youth of the community, and receive mention of their participation in TechTrades related PR marketing efforts.  Finally, participating businesses can also get the first opportunity to reach out to any graduating seniors or college students who are interested in continued growth and may be a good fit for future company hiring.