Pathway Project Highlight: EV Rover and EV Go Kart Pilots

Bergen Community College 

In Academic year 2023-24, the EV Rover Laboratory curriculum developed by Mr. Steve Cohen of Applied Technology High School in Phase I of the pathways project was piloted in Engineering Workshop-9 at Bergen County Technical High School (BCTS). The implementation was a huge success, and the laboratory experiments will be included in the curriculum at the school going forward. 

In addition to the EV Rover pilot the EV Go-Kart Design Challenge was piloted at the following four Metro New Jersey High Schools: 

• Bergen County Technical High School (BCTS) – Teterboro
• Applied Tech High School (ATHS) – Paramus 
• John E. Dwyer Technical Academy – Elizabeth 
• Thomas Edison Career and Technical Academy – Elizabeth

Each school integrated the design challenge into the curriculum of a junior or senior level engineering or automotive technology course. At ATHS and BCTS – Teterboro, students used the fall semester to design the Maker pipe frame of the Go-Karts using engineering design software such as fusion-360 or AutoCAD. Students then started building the frames and ordering all the components in the spring semester. At ATHS, students completed the design and construction of the frame by April. At BCTS – Teterboro, students had mostly finished the frame by the end of the school year.  

At John E. Dwyer Technical Academy & Thomas Edison Career and Technical Academy, where the projects were not able to start until December, students opted to source a prefabricated frame so that they could devote their time to the engineering and construction of the prototype EV-Go-Kart. In each case, high school students used the engineering design loop curriculum, best practices video guidebook and EV Go-Kart parts list created by Bergen Community College students in the Phase I EV pathway project completed in 2022-23. 

Although we initially had hoped that all the projects could be completed by May or June of this year, we quickly learned that sourcing all the parts for the project would delay the completion of the projects. We are now projecting that each school should be done building their prototype EV Go-Kart in mid-October. Once all the schools are completed, Bergen Community College plans on hosting a Design Challenge conference and rally at its Paramus campus in late October. At the conference, each team will give a short presentation about their design and each team will demo their Go-Kart on the college’s 400-meter track. We may or may not choose to invite engineers from the Automotive and electro-mechanical industries to judge the entries.