MKL

We (being the GEARE students) were given our design project (MKL) for the semester.  I am in a group with one Purdue student, Steve, as well as a German student, a Chinese SJTU student, and a couple of other ID students.

The basic idea of our project is to design the entire "back half" of a racing scooter.  Apparently in Mechanical Design III here, the students designed the front half.  Seeing as how we are just starting in Mechanical Design IV, it will be interesting to see how much exactly we know about the project.

The back half of the scooter includes a one-cylinder internal combustion engine (like in some motorcycles, go-karts, and, well, scooters), the clutch, the transmission, and the traction drive to the rear wheel.  Since Purdue doesn't exactly cover all of these components in class (several clubs do) and I didn't really work on cars when I was younger, I know exactly jack squat about what we're going to do.  Needless to say, I'll be spending a lot of time researching.

In other news, the majority of the group of Purdue students is heading to Stuttgart Saturday.  We plan on going to the Mercedes-Benz and Porsche museums as well as the spring festival which happens to be going on in Stuttgart for the next few weeks.  I,  personally, plan on attempting to go to the VfB Stuttgart soccer match against Bayer Leverkusen.  One would be surprised by the amount of Germans and other people who seemingly can't believe that I like soccer as an American.

That is all for now.  Until next time, Alles Gute.