COMPETITION:
Historically, VDS has hand picked our teams. While a functional approach, it leaves a lot of people out and limits our reach. As VDS aims to make our team base more organic and self-regulating, there are a few areas where VDS is keen to see advances made in as timely and thorough a manner as possible. While still in the discovery stages, VDS is interested in launching a series of competitions that enable teams to work on their own to develop solutions to some of the real roadblocks in the way of sustainable mobility. At the moment, we are looking at the following competitive topics:
1. Local versus Global: Vehicles are powerful drivers of innovation because their supply chain provides a massive market for just about every industry. With the aim of building a vehicle which not only moves people but also empowers them, we are interested in determining which elements in a vehicle should be made locally and which supplied globally. The answer to this question may not be the same for every city, every country or every definition of vehicle. Teams would be asked to start with the ArchiMITes bill of materials as reference, and using their home country and local town, city or megatropolis, determine which componentry could best be made locally (creating jobs, expertise and a truly customized product) and which should be sourced via global supply.
2. Auxiliary Power Unit (APU): While huge amounts of talent and money has gone into large engine optimization, small machines tuned to move light vehicles are expressly difficult to find. This competition would be open to all APU types (hydrogen combustion, hydrogen fuel cell, gas or diesel combustion, ethanol combustion, etc). Each team would be asked to design and build a 20 kW unit capable of connecting into the ArchiMITes electric drive module. Systems would be evaluated based on efficiency, overall impact on vehicle performance and projected cost at scale.
3. Your Vision: One reason VDS is set up as a global project is to try and understand what about transportation and mobility is the same everywhere and what is distinct. Started with the ArchiMITes engineering packaging, we would invite automotive designers, enthusiasts and engineerings to submit complete interior and exterior designs, along with a list of key features, that would enable the vehicle to serve as many purposes, do as much good, as humanly possible.
As we investigate topics, we are also interested in what best motivates participation. A trip to MIT? A chance to present to top executives or government leaders? Cash? Respect?
If you have designed open competitions in the past and are interested in helping us to craft the rule set, certainly do be in touch. Otherwise, any feedback and suggestions you might have can be provided below or discussed on our forum.
Questions to Answer:
What is the right scope for the competition?
How should the competition be structured?
What lessons can we learn from automotive, other competitions?
Who is our primary target audience to get involved?
What incentives best motivate active participation?
How can we best promote the competition to get good ideas?
