Every year the Institute for Affordable Transportation (IAT) hosts a Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV) competition amongst Midwestern colleges and universities. We started the competition back in 2000, when the IAT was founded, as a way to perfect the BUV design. We were crowdsourcing before there was even a word for “crowdsourcing.”
The way the competition works is that student teams design and build different BUVs to compete in a series of tests and events to determine the best design for the year. Many of the student builders are engineering students completing their capstone projects at the end of their college careers. This is a way for them to apply everything they’ve learned into improving on an already improved design. Because the BUV is used in a variety of locales without any infrastructure, the test vehicles must navigate a variety of different terrains, including an obstacle course, mud pit, mogul field, and an endurance track.
The race track the competitors race on is 2.1 miles (mi) and each design has to carry three 55 gallon water jugs across the course. Every third lap the water jugs must be emptied in a nearby pond and loaded up with water again so a pumping mechanism is also involved in the competition.
Our most recent competition winner for 2014 was the University of Cincinnati Bearcats club team with Alfred State College (a.k.a. State University of New York) in second and Purdue University’s Cameroon Pup team finishing in third.
We would like to thank all of the teams who participated in the event and would like to invite all schools interested to come to the 15th Annual BUV Competition April 17-18, 2015 in Batavia, Ohio. Click here for more information.
