CU Boulder · MCEN 3025 · August–December 2025
A five-person design-build project turning frame and drivetrain CAD into a working endurance vehicle.
Design and build a drill-powered tricycle for a 30-minute endurance event, within a $200 budget and 50 lb weight limit. Hills, turns, battery constraints, and repeated loading made dependable propulsion as important as speed.
I developed frame and drivetrain CAD, engineering drawings, and waterjet manufacturing files. I also contributed structural checks, machining, assembly, and iterative testing. The complete vehicle was a five-person team build.
The original head-tube cope exceeded the shop notcher’s range. Revising the frame geometry before fabrication made the joint practical to build.
Rear-wheel movement disturbed chain alignment. The team added support beams and slotted dropout plates to stiffen the assembly and adjust chain tension.
Test rides exposed movement at the drill plate. Welded brackets replaced the temporary mounting approach, improving the load path at the mount.
We built and tested a functional vehicle for the endurance challenge. The most important lesson was how a small interface issue can affect the entire system, and how fabrication feedback and test rides reveal what CAD alone cannot.