Information Technology : Innovation + Job News

Summit Data Communications builds international presence with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth products

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Summit Data Communications marks its inception from March of 2006 when “the last of the founders quit their ‘day job’ at Cisco Systems and went all-in at Summit,” says CEO Ron Seide.

Since then, the Akron-based company has shipped more than 1.4 million units of its product and is poised for further growth.

The company produces industrial and medical grade Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules for embedding into mobile devices that operate in challenging environments like factories, warehouses and hospitals. Unlike the “consumer-grade” wireless modules of its competitors, Summit’s modules are hardware and software optimized for optimal connectivity under the most difficult conditions.

More than 70 customers, half of which are in Asia, choose from among seventeen products. Revenues swelled from $7 million in ’07 to $15.2 million last year, a three-year increase of 115 percent. The company’s 2010 percentage growth rankings looked better because they were working off a smaller base, Seide explains.

Summit’s employees have grown from the original five founders to more than 20 full-time equivalents.

“We focus mostly on software developers and technical support people. I estimate we’ll add 6 to 9 people next year. We also employ an extensive number of remote software developers who work out of their homes. We use this flexibility to attract and retain talent that would often be beyond the reach of a small enterprise like ours,” says Seide.

“We’re 100 percent bootstrapped, which is to say we’re self-funded.”

Source: Ron Seide, Summit Data Communications
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

Central Ohio report calls for community-wide action to bridge IT skills gaps

Thursday, October 20, 2011

A central Ohio-wide effort by businesses, universities and public-private partnerships is needed to bridge the gaps between business needs and the IT worker competencies needed in the next five years, says a new study released late last week.

TechColumbus and Columbus State Community College, with funding from the Ohio Skills Bank, worked in partnership with Wright State University and Community Research Partners in a four-month analysis of businesses, contractors, consultants, IT workers and universities. The objective was to identify the growth rate for IT jobs, the replacement rate for jobs and the mix of needed jobs and skills.

The study found that between 2006 and last year, 9,000 new IT jobs were created in central Ohio, but that an additional 23,500 IT workers will be needed by 2016. The problem is, there currently aren't enough skilled workers to fill those slots.

The study found:

-- A shortage of workers with required technical skills
-- A need to develop the current workforce in areas relating to soft skills, critical thinking skills and business acumen
-- A shortage of relevant worker training programs
-- Difficulty retaining students in Central Ohio after graduation
-- Increasing worker competition and poaching among local firms
-- Difficulty attracting and retaining talent from outside the region and state
-- Changing relationships and processes between IT contractors and buyers that contribute to the worker shortage.
-- Structural changes in the workforce due to increasing number of “free agents” and aging baby boomers moving into retirement

The report recommends short-term actions that include training programs for high demand jobs, a greater emphasis on internships, innovative collaborative practices among educators, business and public/private partnerships, innovative career and retention practices and regional marketing and recruiting initiatives.

Long term, the report suggests actions ranging from a collaborative system to exchange supply and demand across business and university communities, to marketing central Ohio as a “cool” community.

Tim Haynes, VP of member services and marketing for TechColumbus, says the study was launched based on growing perceptions of the IT environment during the past three to four years. He says the results should provide additional impetus for those affected by the skills gap to work together.

“We believe that many organizations in a position to mitigate the issue will act on this opportunity purely because it’s in their business or program’s best interest,” Haynes says. “In other words, sharing this information will be a catalyst. At the same time, more funding may become (available) to accelerate improvements.”

Source: TechColumbus and Tim Haynes
Writer: Gene Monteith

Knotice getting knoticed

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Knotice is the poster child for early stage funding, taking an initial half-million dollar investment and using it to fuel an innovative product that's getting -- well, knoticed.

Founded in 2003, the Akron-based company helps marketers maximize their direct digital marketing through process automation. CEO Brian Deagan says the product has been so well received in the marketplace that sales have grown at least 50 percent since 2003.

"Knotice started this year with 55 employees, and today employs nearly 90, with several positions still available," says CEO Brian Deagan. "Current openings include account executives with mobile experience, software engineers, sales professionals, creative talent, finance and administrative staff . . . We're opening a Seattle office in November, so we're excited to see what the future holds."

The company's technology lets marketers access customer data across all channels. Concentri, its on-demand direct software platform, unites mobile marketing; email marketing, the Web and direct display within a Universal Profile environment, letting marketers manage all their digital touchpoints from a single log-in.

"Other less advanced solutions require the user to move data back and forth between disparate systems � which can be a real pain," Deagan says.

"The company has fully re-paid an investment of $500,000 from JumpStart: "The investment helped us to launch our product and hire a variety of very talented people � most of them are still with us. In an industry that normally relies on outside funding for success, Knotice has been able to mostly self-fund its growth," explains Deagan.

Deagan says Knotice also tries to make the company a good place to work.

"We celebrate people's interests in sports, music and the arts. Employees are reimbursed for yoga classes which they can take at any time [flex time] . . . that, and we have one of the best marketing platforms out there," Deagan boasts.

Source: Brian Deagan; CEO and co-founder
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

BringShare aims to make marketing smarter for small businesses

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Founders Justin Spring and Danielle Walton had small businesses in mind when they developed BringShare. The Columbus-based start-up is an Internet-based tool geared toward meeting the online marketing needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses and marketers.

BringShare provides clients with an integrated platform from which they are able to see all of their online marketing data in a single dashboard. The overall goal of the service is to help users make informed marketing decisions that are more efficient and cost effective.

"BringShare does what other data aggregating services don't," says Spring. "It compiles all online marketing initiatives and presents the data in a way that is consistent and makes it simple to identify which efforts provide the best return on investment, which approaches need to be modified, and those initiatives that aren't paying off."

The site was built to be user-friendly. BringShare users can easily generate reports and evaluate which of their marketing efforts are generating growth, and which aren't.

"The amount of time marketers and small businesses spend gathering data from different channels, developing marketing reports and analyzing the results can add up to 20 to 40 hours of time each month. BringShare simplifies that process to a matter of minutes," Spring says. He estimates that BringShare's average monthly cost is less than one hour of a marketing professional's time.

BringShare currently has five full-time employees. Each of these positions were created within the last year, and the company anticipates future hiring.

TechColumbus, which provides OhioThird Frontier support to emerging businesses, provided BringShare with a $50,000 TechGenesis development grant. Additionally, TechColumbus provided BringShare with $250,000 in pre-seed funding and $150,000 from its Co-Investment Fund. Investors include the Ohio TechAngels.

Source: Justin Spring, BringShare
Writer: Kitty McConnell

Go Big helps companies get big investments

Thursday, October 06, 2011

When entrepreneurs go in search of capital, a common mantra is "go big or go home." One company, based in Santa Monica, Calif., and suburban Columbus, is helping them do just that -- find the funding to launch their businesses.

Go BIG Network, which has offices in Powell, is an online service that help connects people with ideas with that funding. Started in 2004 by Wil Schroter, a self-described "serial entrepreneur" with eight start-ups to his name that have generated over $2 billion annually, the service helps its clients navigate the fund-raising process, prepare pitches to prospective investors and even identify its own capital streams.

Its services run from a $59 monthly fee for access to its pool of thousands of those investors to $300 guided searches and consulting to reach the right angel investors, venture capitalists and private investors.

"We have a rolodex of investors that we've worked with and that we know, and we steer our clients to those investors that are the best fit," says Ilya Bodner, Go BIG's senior vice president of business development. "What we do exceptionally well, though, is help people prepare for that 'magic phone call.'"

According to Bodner, that is where most entrepreneurs fail, translating their ideas into a cohesive plan that attract the attention of those investors.

"Thinking you are prepared and actually being prepared are two different things. It leads to a lot of false hope, going into a pitch thinking you have everything lined up, then falling short," he explains.

The website also offers plenty of free information, explaining the investment process, pitfalls to avoid and other tips. It also offers a live chat for quick, one-on-one advice.

According to the company, to date more than 300,000 subscribers have used the service — both investors and those seeking funding -- to spur millions in economic growth.

"All we can say is that it works," says Bodner. "Our track record proves it."

Source: Ilya Bodner, Go BIG Network
Writer: Dave Malaska

Cleveland puts out welcome mat to the world

Thursday, September 22, 2011

The growth of Cleveland into a major industrial powerhouse in the late 1800s and early 1900s was fueled by the labor and entrepreneurial skills of millions of immigrants. Arriving from Slovakia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Italy, and Germany, they eagerly filled Cleveland jobs.

After nearly a decade of sliding population figures, Cleveland is now looking to recapture the momentum of those early days of robust economic growth by putting out a high-profile welcome mat to immigrants and others through the new Global Cleveland organization.

Global Cleveland focuses on regional economic development by attracting, welcoming and connecting newcomers, both economically and socially, to the many opportunities available throughout Greater Cleveland.

While the program officially launched in July, the Global Cleveland Welcome Hub will open this fall in the center of downtown Cleveland, according to Baiju Shah, chairman of the organization’s board.

“Global Cleveland will focus on all newcomers with active newcomer attraction initiatives to recruit individuals not currently residing in the Cleveland region,” he explains.

The target audience of newcomers includes immigrants, international students attending local universities and colleges, and “boomerangs”-- native Clevelanders returning to town.

The organization has four strategies: attraction, retention, connection and communication.

“We’ve discovered that many ex-Clevelanders have only limited information about both the economy and the region that was once their home,” Shah explains. “Once presented with the rich set of new opportunities here, they are pleasantly surprised and interested in learning more.”

Global Cleveland is developing a series of initiatives for attracting and retaining newcomers. Programs currently under way aim at showcasing job opportunities in health care, biomedical, IT and financial services.

“We’re also creating a resource directory to help newcomers get more quickly connected to the community,” he says.

The program has developed a host of partnerships with community organizations, agencies, universities and ethnic groups. “We will be establishing a network of welcome centers across the region,” Shah notes. “These centers will include information and resources to help newcomers get connected to both professional opportunities and to community resources throughout the region.”

Source: Baiju Shah, Global Cleveland
Writer: Lynne Meyer

Visualizations could give wheelchair bound students ability to explore caves

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Imagine pursuing a degree that requires you to understand caves, mines or other rugged geological formations. Now imagine trying to do your field studies in a wheelchair.

Concerns like that may be rendered moot if virtual technology being developed at Ohio State University and Georgia State University bear fruit.

The two institutions, tapping the power of the Ohio Supercomputer Center, are in the early stages of a study to show whether a virtual environment can be built that is powerful enough to give students and others with disabilities the virtual field experience they need to enter the geosciences in increased numbers.

Financed with a $202,744 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences Program, the two universities are in the first year of a two-year project to bring such a vision to life.

“The idea is that, because of their disability, it’s difficult for them to go out into the field,” says Don Stredney, OSC senior research scientist for biomedical applications and director of the center’s interface laboratory. “We looked at how we can use simulation and virtual technologies to emulate what it would be like to go there, and whether you could teach principles that you’re trying to convey about aspects of geosciences by doing it through a virtual environment.”

The project follows a $39,980 OEDG planning grant last year to design the research. Christopher Atchison, a former graduate research assistant at OSC and now part of the team as an assistant professor of geosciences education at Georgia State, received a separate $10,480 grant to cover involvement of students with mobility impairments during the planning grant work.

The team will use structural data obtained from the Cave Research Foundation and high-precision data collected by laser remote-sensing technology and high-resolution digital photography to build a virtual environment that mimics a typical field outing. Later in the project, students will be placed in the various environments to test their effectiveness as a field learning tool.

A successful project might open up doors not just for those with physical disabilities, but for a wide range of people studying about and working in geosciences – or other fields. The oil and gas industry might be able to benefit from virtual technologies, Stredney says, as well mining personnel who need to know the structure of a place without going there in person.

“I don’t see any limits whatsoever.”

Source: Don Stredney, the Ohio Supercomputer Center, and OSC Communications
Writer: Gene Monteith

Fathom attributes growth to building customer revenues

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Near the end of the telephone interview, Fathom CEO Scot Lowry stops in mid-sentence.

“Sorry,” he explains. “The reason I just hesitated is that we have a gong in our big training room, and every time we get a new customer, somebody rings it. Somebody just rang it.”

By all indications, that gong has been going off regularly. The Valley View online marketing firm, which traces its roots to 1997, was named the second fastest-growing company in Cleveland in 2010, based on 2009 revenues, by the Weatherhead 100.

Lowry says that growth has come because Fathom gives customers what many online marketing firms do not: a clear indication of how marketing solutions result in revenue and return on investment.

Fathom, on the other hand, tracks both and reports it to the client. At the top of Fathom’s home page is a line that keeps a running tally of how much revenue Fathom has generated for its customers. As of Sept. 7, the year-to-date total was $147,243,733.

“Most of the companies that come to us don’t know how to turn the online channel into revenue,” Lowry says. Further, he says, most online marketing companies don’t know how to translate what they do in terms of revenue to the customer.
Instead, they tend to focus on SEO (search engine optimization) or traffic to web pages -- which Lowry says is not an indication of how many deals resulted or how many sales were made.

Fathom grew from a small web development firm called Vendor Tech, which eventually merged with IT consulting firm Fathom IT in 2004. The next year, after e-mail distribution and pay-per-click management services were added, the company spun off Fathom SEO. In 2006, Fathom SEO added video production and marketing services and built a recording studio.

As a comprehensive online marketing firm, the SEO tag no longer defined the company, Lowry says.

“Today we have an incredibly powerful array of capabilities, and we dropped SEO from the company name because of that,” he says. “And we’ve been in the process of communicating to the world that SEO isn’t enough. You’ve got to look at a complete matrix approach at using all forms of online (marketing). And that isn’t based on what we have, it’s based on what the client needs.”

The flagship product is called Your Top Salesperson, described as a “complete, fully customizable online marketing service that delivers results that matter to your business.”

Employment has followed revenues. With only 20 employees five years ago, the company now has 130 -- 20 of them coming from the recent acquisition of Columbus-based Webbed Marketing, which provides complementary services and has deep expertise in social media.

Lowry says Fathom is hiring, with 12 open spots at present.

Source: Scot Lowry, Fathom
Writer: Gene Monteith

LeanDog's lean, agile tools build customer base, 1000 percent growth

Thursday, September 08, 2011

LeanDog has taken lean practices well beyond the manufacturing realm, where techniques like Kaizen originally made their mark. Today, the Cleveland firm, which helps organizations in virtually every industry take waste out of their IT operations, has hit its stride, growing sales more than 1000 percent since 2007 and landing at 311 on Inc.’s annual list of America’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies.

CEO and founder John Stahl says what his firm of 36 employees does is promote “culture change.”

“We teach them (clients) how to fish,” he says, “by helping them build a lean and agile culture.”

The fishing analogy seems appropriate, given that LeanDog is housed on a boat in downtown Cleveland -- right next to a mothballed WWII submarine (the U.S.S. Cod).

Stahl and co-founder Jeff Morgan learned about agile software development after years of serving a variety of IT organizations, Stahl says. Helping organizations streamline their operations has spurred happy customers to increasingly seek software development services from LeanDog, contributing to revenues that Inc. reported at $2.5 million last year, up from $214,801 in 2007.

Stahl says LeanDog’s hallmarks are “extreme transparency and a personal brand,” noting that his firm does no advertising.

Meanwhile, Stahl says the company is helping fuel the Cleveland startup scene by hosting Startup Weekend and Cleveland GiveCamp, in which IT professionals develop software for charities during a 72-hour period.

The company has plans to expand its Columbus operations in the near future -- it currently has eight employees there -- as well as possibly adding offices in Pittsburgh and Salt Lake city.

Stahl says his company is hiring, with 20 to 30 open spots currently.

Source: John Stahl, LeanDog
Writer: Gene Monteith

Cincinnati Innovates highlights 12 southwest Ohio innovators

Thursday, September 08, 2011

While chores may never make it to your child's bucket list, two Cincinnati entrepreneurs are developing a web-based and mobile application that can make them more enjoyable.

The idea was enough to garner Chris Bergman and Paul Armstrong's ChoreMonster a $25,000 CincyTech Commercialization award at this year's Cincinnati Innovates competition.

ChoreMonster, now under development, connects chores and rewards through a point system. The application, which can be accessed by parents and their children, awards kids points based on the type of chore they complete. The points can then be cashed in for real rewards like a gaming system or a night out at the movies.

ChoreMonster was among a dozen local entrepreneurs recently shared $115,000 in grants awarded by Cincinnati Innovates, a nonprofit in search of the "next big thing. Cincinnati startup Acceptd, which is developing web-based software designed to make it easier for university professionals to manage video applications for creative and sports programs, also won a $25,000 commercialization award.

"For the most part we're looking for entrepreneurs with a 'disruptive' innovation, with the potential to grow into great companies," says Elizabeth Edwards, founder of Metro Innovation and organizer of the competition. "These disruptive innovations have the potential to completely transform a marketplace."

In the past three years, more than 1,000 local entrepreneurs have participated in the annual competition, and winners have divvied up a total of $250,000 in grants provided by 23 sponsors. Past winners have raised over $3.5 million in follow-on capital, have been featured in national media, and are changing the world with their ideas.

This year's dozen innovators will save stroke victims, help travelers avoid missing flights, protect firefighters, stimulate kids to do their chores, and help to draft better fantasy sports teams.

"Cincinnati Innovates was a joint effort between CincyTech, the Taft law firm, Soapbox and myself," says Edwards. "The awards are important in helping to identify aspiring entrepreneurs. Typically, aspiring entrepreneurs don't wear tee shirts that say, 'I'm thinking about starting a company.'"

She adds: "We are looking at things at the concept stage, before a business plan is even written . . . entrepreneurs must have a nearly transformational innovation and be serious about commercializing it. CincyTech, for example, has three awards . . . they're typically looking for healthcare and IT companies, something that offers a potential market exceeding 250 million dollars," says Edwards.

Other awards are outside the healthcare and IT markets.

Sources: Elizabeth A. Edwards, Metro Innovation; Soapbox
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

iGuiders wants to give retailers 300-400 percent conversions to sales boost

Thursday, August 25, 2011

If you were an online retail channel and could increase your conversions to sales by 350 to 400-percent, with a minimum investment in time and cost would you do it?

iGuiders, a Cleveland startup company with an interactive online shopping and search application, is betting you would. And, so far, iGuiders Founder & CEO, Jodi Marchewitz, has reason to believe.

iGuiders are interactive, decision-making applications that launch a Guided Shopping Experience ™ (GSE) directly from a link embedded into any digital marketing initiative, including social media, ads, websites and e-mails. Given the customer's responses to a series of questions, the application guides the customer to the product or service that best fits their needs -- providing a virtual personal shopper.

Marchewitz says billions are lost in online sales each year simply because people cannot easily find what they're looking for. iGuiders are built specifically for each company, according to a set of questions and answers provided by the client, and are designed to lead the customer directly to purchase.

The company was founded by Marchewitz in 2008, with a grant from Cleveland's Civic Innovation Lab. iGuiders subsequently received two rounds of angel funding from JumpStart Ventures and has already served heavyweight clients such as Mattel, Kodak, Sports Authority, NFL, NHL, NBA, NASCAR and Skull Candy.

Now, iGuiders has signed with Value Click, as its exclusive ad network partner and has presented iGuiders demos to 70 of Value Clicks top clients. "We've given them the runway," Marchewitz says, "and we're excited about the potential Value Clicks brings to our exposure to the market."

The company has also grown from 4 to 6 employees. "Because we created the app so that no coding is required, we are able to hire entry-level staff and bring them up to speed quickly," Marchewitz says. "Our most recent intern was writing iGuiders after one day."

And the growth potential for iGuiders? Let's just say that Marchewitz is optimistic:
"It's really a no-brainer for marketers when we can build the iGuiders in less than a day and increase their conversions immediately."

Source: Jodi Marchewitz, iGuiders
Writer: Dana Griffith

Cincinnati�s Innovative Card Solutions integrates prepaid cards with financial literacy

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Cincinnati-based financial-services company plans to issue prepaid MasterCards to 10,000 college students, thanks largely to an angel investment from William G. Mays (Mays Chemical in Indianapolis) and $250,000 from CincyTech.

Brothers Wyatt and Wade Goins formed Innovative Card Solutions 2008. They now have seven full-time employees. The business offers reloadable debit cards, online financial-literacy courses and money-management tools for businesses and college students.

"Other companies provide prepaid solutions but we integrate financial literacy with our program . . . everything from online money-management tools to financial literacy modules," explains Wade Goins, the company's chief marketing officer.

Twenty-three online training modules cover monthly budgeting, credit scores, identity theft and managing college loans. Other money-management tools include mobile messaging alerts.

ICS also helps corporations with direct payroll deposit for employees who don't have bank accounts. For college students, it's a convenient way to manage their money and access tuition refunds.

The company was founded "to teach financial literacy and provide under-served consumers a safe, convenient way of making purchases, paying bills and getting cash," says Goins.

"We use the prepaid card as a tool for behavior modification. We give them the tools they need to manage their money better," he says. "For the last two years we've been developing our technology platform. Now, we're in the launch phase, starting with five universities this fall."

The five universities are Urbana University, University of Evansville, Florida Memorial University, Trine University and Wilmington College.

Source: Wade Goins; Chief Marketing Officer, Innovative Card Solutions
Writer: Patrick G. Mahoney

SearchTeam allows groups to collaborate, work together online

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Cincinnati web entrepreneur has developed a new social search engine that allows groups to collaborate, organize and save topic searches with SearchTeam.com.

"Searching has been a lonely, solo activity to date. But by delivering real-time as well as asynchronous collaborative searching, SearchTeam is bringing a fundamentally new way to search and research information in personal, education, business and other professional settings," says founder Sundar Kadayam.

The engine is an outgrowth of his Zakta.com search engine. Launched in 2009, Zakta was developed as personal engine that allows editing, saving and categorization of results.

It allows members to create profiles in a "SearchSpace," where they can invite others to search with them. Results can be saved into topic folders and others can "like" and comment on topic results. SearchTeam also has a chat feature that allows for coordination of searches.

Potential uses include vacation planning, genealogy research, R&D and patent research. The tool is especially useful in the educational realm, where students can use it for group research projects. Teachers, can use it in distance learning programs.

"It really is imaginative and ingenious. The ability to work together as a group adds a whole new dimension to searching, especially for students who are used to working together in groups," Kadayam says.

Zakta is currently located in Blue Ash's Vora Innovation Center. The company has several interns and part-time employers, with plans to expand with some full-time employees later this year. The company has received investment from CincyTech, Vora Ventures and some private angel investors, Kadayam says.

Source: Sundar Kadayam, SearchTeam.com
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

ChoreMonster app aims to connect families, make work fun

Thursday, August 25, 2011

For most kids there is no getting around chores. Whether it's cleaning their bedrooms, mowing the yard or taking out the trash, they are part of family life.

While the tedious tasks may never make it on the list of things kids look forward to, two Cincinnati entrepreneurs are developing a web-based and mobile application that can make them more enjoyable.

ChoreMonster, now under development, connects chores and rewards through a point system. The application, which can be accessed by parents and their children, gives kids points based on the type of chore they complete. Once they garner enough points, kids can cash them in for real-life rewards like a Christmastime gaming system or $25 for a night out at the movies.

The parent decides how to award points and what rewards to associate with them.

ChoreMonster is the brainchild of Chris Bergman and Paul Armstrong, digital marketing consultants at WiseAcre Digital in Over-The-Rhine.

"I grew up in a household where chores had a negative connotation," says Bergman, whose first child is due in December. "ChoreMonster is a way to enjoy daily chores. We wanted to create an experience where parents could interact with their children in a unique and engaging way. This gives them an opportunity to do that."

ChoreMonster is one of eight startups that are part of The Brandery's 2011 class. The seed stage consumer marketing venture accelerator offers a 12-week course that includes mentoring, 20K in financing upon completion and access to potential investors.

"We already have a lot of strengths (in business) but we want to learn more about strategic partnerships and fundraising. It's a great opportunity to access the network, mentors and the collective wisdom of The Brandeary," says Bergman, of College Hill.

ChoreMonster will be ready for private Beta when The Brandery class finishes this fall, Bergman says. As with each class, the application will be unveiled during a demo day before the public and the local investor community.

Source: Chris Bergman, ChoreMonster
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites

This story originally appeared in sister publication Soapbox.

Engineering students start work on new generation of Buckeye Bullet

Thursday, July 28, 2011

A team of Ohio State University engineering students has begun work on a new generation of electric car designed to push land speeds to at least 400 mph.

The team recently began aerodynamic simulations for the Buckeye Bullet 3, the successor to previous Buckeye Bullets that set electric vehicle land speed records. The team expects to complete the design process by the end of this summer, spend next academic year building and testing the vehicle and finally running it full-out at Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats in fall of 2012.

The latest Buckeye Bullet represents a complete makeover from the Buckeye Bullet 2.5 -- which last year set an international electric vehicle record at 307 mph, says Carey Bork, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and the project's chief engineer.

"The Buckeye Bullet 2.5 that we actually set the record with last year was really a test vehicle," Bork says. "The intent has always been to build a brand new land speed record car from the gorund up. And really the difference between them is that the Buckeye Bullet 1 used nickel-metal hydride batteries, and the BB2.5 -- and also the new one that we're going to be building -- will use lithium ion."

Giorgio Rizzoni, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of OSU's Center for Automotive Research, says another big difference is that the Buckeye Bullet 3 will run with the assistance of "really high performance, high tech electric motors that are being custom designed and fabricated by Venturi (North America, a project partner). And in addition to that it's a brand new chassis."

The challenges of increasing speeds from the 300 mph to 400 mph range are too numerous to list, Bork says. But one challenge is that testing using wind tunnels or trial runs on Ohio tracks fall short.

"We never get to run these cars full speed until we get them out to the salt flats," Bork says. Additionally, when testing in wind tunnels "you have to have what's called a rolling road in which the surface that the vehicle is sitting on is rolling. That has a very important effect on aerodynamics. But there's no rolling road wind tunnel that can reach those speeds."

That's why the team is using the Ohio Supercomputer Center to run computational fluid dynamics to design and optimize the car, he says.

While the goal of the project is to set new land speed records for an electric car (while giving engineering students the kind of experience they would get nowhere else) it's possible that the Buckeye Bullet 3 -- if all goes as planned -- could break all land speed records for a wheel-driven vehicle.

"We don't want to go out there and guarantee that," Bork says. "It's a huge jump to go from 300 mph to challenging the all-out wheel-driven record. But, basically, that's not far away, and that's something we're keeping our eyes on."

Sources: Carey Bork and Giorgio Rizzoni, Ohio State University
Author: Gene Monteith