Hybrid electric nitro 1/8th scale!

[JThiessen]

Originally Posted by suicideneil

But but but, hybrid cars have been around for years,

Calculators have been around forever too - might as well take all the math out of schools and just give the kids calculators. Skip teaching your kids to walk - its much less efficient than having them run.
I dont believe the exercise they did was worth an article in a magazine (or website), but it was still a fundamental teaching exercise.

ZPbug said there should be better things they could be designing - sure there are. But its the hands on experience that these kids need. Most engineers wouldn't know a 1/2 inch wrench from a pair of vice grips due to a significant lack of hands on training. And with funding problems, putting together a full size car may have been cost prohibitive. Maybe, this is just a precurser for a later project of something more applicable to whatever technology they are trying to achieve.

The truth of it is, none of us know the full picture or scope of what they are trying to learn.

[zeropointbug]

I don't know, I guess I just have the attitude that 'most' engineering students don't even know what they are doing, or getting into. Most don't even really enjoy it, or have a passion for it... if you don't have a passion for what you are doing, you SHOULD NOT be doing it, most can agree with me on that I think? But, as well, this really does happen more than you realize, to the majority of people, IMO.

I guess I am being a little harsh as well... we don't even know how old these students are that put this 'thing' together... are they 2nd year students? 3rd? 4th?