One of these things that did happen, although they usually don't happen
In the morning of January 15th this spring, Sebastian took his car out to the Arcus sports centre in Luleå. The Luleå municipality had given us permission to use the indoor running track for our fuel-efficiency measurement of Baldos II the coming Thursday. Sebastian was assigned to check it out; where to let the car in, where to put the tables, access to fire-extinguishers, toilets, electricity etc.
But as he arrived there the indoor track turned out to be a construction yard. The roof was being renovated and there were machines and construction equipment everywhere. The foreman he spoke to said that the building was subject to construction yard regulations, which meant no kind of activities other than safety approved renovating was allowed. Anyone who was to enter had to wear safety shoes and helmets at all times. “Maybe we can just take away the machinery and let you drive around here some if you really need to” he said, “but it must fit in to the worker lunch between 12 and 1 PM”. A poor consolation since we had already invited both our sponsors and press to the minimum two-hour measurement.
On the Finnish roads, daytime
Unfortunately, trouble with external sources has been a common theme in this project. We’ve often found ourselves waiting for promised calls, replies to e-mails, specifications to be sent, parts to be delivered and so on. And once they’ve arrived there’s been things missing, faulty or out of specifications, or they’ve arrived so late that they are no longer needed. Things like this might sound trivial, but in the long run it has meant a lot of extra work from our side. If we would do it all again we could’ve done it in two-thirds of the time just by avoiding a couple of silly things on the way. Let’s take the unexpected journey to Finland by Michael and Martin as an example of that. This is their story:
Wednesday 3rd of March at 8 AM I (Michael) finally got some good news from Scanmould (a Finnish manufacturing company) – the moulds for the prototype car were finally ready! That was the good news – the bad news was that the whole Finnish transportation industry had just gone on a strike, making it impossible for us to get them.
On the Finnish roads, nighttime
Since we needed the mould as fast as possible, the best alternative resulted in me and Martin going to Finland to get the mould ourselves – a 1200 km drive. Said and done, we left Luleå at 10.30 driving a rented Mercedes Sprinter. To our dismay the mini truck was only equipped with a cassette recorder and a radio. Being the heavy metal fans we are, this problem had to be solved instantly. The savior turned out to be a cassette tape modified with a cord that allowed it to be connected to an mp3-player.
Due to the weather the roads in Finland were similar to a skating rink, which resulted in an average speed of only 70 km/h to ensure survival of us two students. The view from the road could easily be described as dark, snowy and straight – there really was nothing of interest whatsoever.
On the Finnish roads, dawn
The trip took its time and it was not until 9 PM that we arrived at Scanmould in Ytteresse, Finland. With help from the sturdy Marcus Lill the moulds got loaded smoothly into the truck and we were on our way after 30 minutes. We began to feel like it would be going to be a very long night. The roads were the same, except for less cars and that it was night time. We drove all night long and got more and more tired, and even when we tried to sleep we couldn’t because of a constant fear of slipping on the icy roads. At 4.30 AM we arrived at Jaxal AB and unloaded the windshield mould (Jaxal would sponsor us with the vacuum forming).
After that it was only 150 km left and we were feeling happier by the mile closer to our destination. At 6 AM Thursday the 4th we arrived safe and sound in Luleå. We delivered the moulds to APC and handed back the sprinter to the car rental. Then we finally got our well-earned sleep.
Arrived at Jaxal AB
With the risk of giving a too pessimistic impression, it has to be pointed out that far from all contacts with external sources have been negative. Quite on the contrary some have been positive surprises. Jaxal sponsored us with all vacuum forming needed – even when we asked for another round. Kollmorgen not only gave us an Electrical Motor Control-Unit (EMCU) but also invited us down to Stockholm to instruct in how to use it. ABB calibrated their Torductor® for our needs and sponsored us with the equipment. This is all deeply appreciated from our side!
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