FLL Project presentation By The Whatchamacallits: Peter, Aidan, Micah, and Jacob

California Bay Area Palo Alto

Cars Planes Trains Skateboards Ambulances Feet Bikes Boats Helicopters Motorcycles

Caltrains BART Trains Amtrak Light Rail

Local Travel works well, has a few problems: Safety Pollution Long distance travel: o Too many stops=too slow o Old tracks=slow o Only one trip each day from Northern CA to Southern CA o Not enough passengers, because of this!

Example Trip: Palo Alto to Anaheim CARHIGH-SPEED TRAIN SAVED CO2 emissions416 lbs.82 lbs.334 lbs. Cost$88$56$32 Time8 hours2.5 hours5.5 hours

It is very fast o It goes from San Francisco to Los Angeles In 2 ½ Hours. Eco Friendly o Does not use gasoline o Electric o Very efficient SAFE! o No grade crossings Comfortable Convenience o No Security checkpoints? o Stations Downtown o More Stations

Loud Ugly tracks Ugly Wires Divides neighborhoods Expensive Location of stations

One Solution:  One solution to the problems with noise and looks is to create an underground tunnel  This will not divide neighborhoods, and won’t be ugly. We went to the high-speed rail workshop and found out that the cost of creating a tunnel was around $ million per mile. This is too expensive, so we had to think of a new idea. Us with Joseph Bellomo, an architect who also had the raised- track idea.

An elevated track with pillars to hold it up. o Allows foot traffic and cars to travel underneath it. o Can be designed attractively o Other communities have done this sort of project.

A light rail from the Seattle Tacoma airport.

We created a model of our raised- rail idea in Google Sketchup.

Transparent sound baffles

Our Model placed in Palo Alto

The Second Part of the Problem The next part of the problem is, what will they do for the power source. There is... o Catenary wires, the wires that are above the train, which are ugly. o A third rail, which is very dangerous. o Gasoline, which is bad for the environment. o Electricity which is very cheap but hard to get to the train. o A fuel cell, which is extremely efficient but is very expensive. Out of all of these the fuel cell is the best choice... except for the cost.

Here are some examples of ugly catenary wires

Our solution to that problem Make the High speed train powered by Fuel cell, it only emits nitrogen and water. o No more Wires o Eco-Friendly o it is not ugly in any way. o Although, it costs just a bit more.

One fuel cell locomotive concept running on liquid ammonia

We Put it on our team website: On November 8, we had a meeting with Palo Alto City Council Member Mrs. Yoriko Kishimoto She is a Board Member of Valley Transportation Authority

THANK YOU! The Whatchamacallits …any questions?

Biblography     onia/2006/VehicleProjects.pdfhttp:// onia/2006/VehicleProjects.pdf 

Our Robot for FLL