April 22, 2015

            Patrick is a wizard, more of a Gandalf than a Harry Potter though. Campbell and I showed up at his garage before he had arrived so we decided to try to handle the gas bike situation on our own. We did not get too far, and James is more of a fuel injection kind of guy rather than a carburetor expert. All I know is that we messed with the choke and something happened. When Patrick showed up he was there to clean things up for us. I am still a little confused, but from what I understand I believe that we started the bike originally with the choke almost closed just to warm up the engine and then we ride the bike with the choke down for the rest of the time. Our main problem, however, is that the carburetor refuses to stay put. The vibrations from the motor are too strong and the cheap clamp from the kit is too cheap. After some tests runs, we have resorted to some final fixes. We used some glue so that the bolt on the other side of the screw will stay tight, and if that does not work we will have to look for a heavy-duty clamp that will fit the bike. Hopefully the glue works.

            Campbell and I then realized that the electric bike might be feeling a bit neglected after all the attention we had given the gas bike. We took her out for a spin. We were able to get some good footage of how the electric bike can perform on flat ground, up hills, and down hills. One of our cooler shots is a side-by-side duo featuring Eli on bike and Campbell in car, both going 30 mph #woah. Hopefully we will be able to get the same footage with our gas-powered bike. However, either way it will be great for the presentation. Next, Campbell and I headed to Starbucks to further work on our PowerPoint.

            At Starbucks we were able to compile our data and begin writing up some slides. We found more data to compare the bikes to cars and equations that translate watts to gas. This will all become very useful for our presentation. Our project is wrapping up and the deadlines are approaching. Campbell and I feel pretty confident with ourselves and our progress. Hopefully everyone will enjoy the presentation and be able to see the work Campbell and I put into this. It has been a lot of fun, and I am pretty excited to show off our work tomorrow at the outdoor barbecue.