One of my earliest road trips when I began covering fluid power was just across town, to Cleveland’s east side—where I was asked to cover the Parker Hannifin Chainless Challenge. It was the kind of assignment you give to a junior editor, one where they only have to take a short car ride (and not a long plane flight) and where they can see the technology they’re covering in a more everyday light.
Parker’s mission back then was to excite college engineering students about fluid power by taking an everyday object—a bicycle—and ask them to design some out-of-the-box ideas about how they could power it with fluid power motion control componentry. The idea was beautiful in its simplicity, even if some of the contraptions that were build were … well, not so much!
I wrote last Spring about how the NFPA has now taken the reins of this project and was turning it into more of a company-neutral competition, a move that made a lot of sense. And now, as our own Mary Gannon has reported, the event is moving from the dry, flat ground of southern California to Ames, Iowa this year. I’m glad to hear that Danfoss and other manufacturers are contributing to the program, as well as that there are nine collegiate teams returning:
• California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
• Cleveland State University
• Illinois Institute of Technology
• Murray State University
• Purdue University
• University of Akron
• University of Cincinnati
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Western Michigan University
The official name of the event is now the NFPA Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge, and I encourage you and your company to get involved, whether by donating equipment, serving as mentors or volunteering as judges. More details are available here.
Filed Under: Pneumatic Tips