I never knew just how fun it was to drive a drift trike until I sat behind that big front wheel and twisted the throttle for the first time! Sitting so low to the ground, feeling the power of an electric motor behind you, and reaching speeds of over 30 MPH (50 KM/H) is exhilarating. That first time was also ever-so-slightly terrifying, because there was no protection between what that front tire might kick up and your vital organs!
That's why @C and I took on the challenge of designing and making protective panels (affectionately referred to as 'Gut Guards') to protect the driver from road debris. It turns out that designing a custom piece like this is kind of addictive, so we ended up making 3 different designs.
The first one had a 3D swoopy shape (highly technical term) that mimicked the cow catcher, or pilot, found on a train. It's designed to deflect objects away from the driver - plus it looks really cool!
I modeled the geometry in xDesign and then broke it down into individual bodies that I could cut on a CNC router out of plywood or foam.
Assembled together, these pieces produced the overall shape of the design, but to create the finished surfaces, I turned to thermoforming. I heated ABS sheets in the Formech machine at the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, and then pulled a vacuum over the plywood and foam "bucks" that I created. I used construction adhesive to hold the two halves together and then dressed up the seam using electrical tape.
On the driver side of the guard, I designed and 3D printed a cup holder and dashboard complete with a Back to the Future time circuit inspired display showing the date of the very first SLUGME event (SOLIDWORKS Largest User Group Meeting Ever) - the event that made this drift trike build possible.
At the same time I was having fun with this design, Chinloo was working on a design of her own, plus collaborating with @AB and @EB on a third design.
Chinloo's design took the SLUGME9 logo and turned it into a laser cut acrylic puzzle. This middle layer of pieces was sandwiched between two clear sheets of acrylic to create a clean, stylized look that allowed the driver to see the wheel and road in front of them.
The Chinloo, Eric, and Andy collaboration centered around the SOLIDWORKS cube logo and featured a Voronoi design like the one Andy used in his record cabinet build. Eric cut thin pieces of copper and aluminum on his water jet, while Chinloo laser etched the cube logo on a sheet of acrylic. When sandwiched together and edge lit with red LEDs, the design totally comes to life!
Check out this video to see how the gut guards were made:
...and this video to watch the full SLUGME9 episode!
Be sure to stay tuned to see what the team dreams up for this year when we celebrate the 10th anniversary of this amazing event!
