Electric Garage Open House June 4th 6pm-8pm

Next Tuesday, June 4 we will be hosting a group of students and adults from the Minddrive project in Kansas City who will be visiting CMU as part of their second cross-country drive with an electric vehicle. We thought this would be a great opportunity to invite people from the CMU community and the public at large to meet with the Minddrive group, see their EV--electrified 1967 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia--as well as other EVs from the area, and talk to like-minded folks.


What: Informal open house
Where: The Electric Garage, 4621 Forbes Avenue,
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (parking available at the garage)
When: Tuesday, June 4, 6-8PM

We particularly encourage EV owners to bring and brag about their EVs.

Hope to see you there!

More about Minddrive:
 

Electric Garage Open House-Oct. 17 6pm-8:30pm

This week we will be hosting a group of engineers from the Ford Hybrid Electric Vehicle Calibration group. So, to show off the Ford EVs--and just to get together with like-minded folks--we have decided to have an informal open house at the Electric Garage (4621 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213) on Wednesday October 17 from 6-8:30pm. Come out and see:

* Ford plug-in hybrid vehicles
* ChargeCar converted Honda Civic EVs
* ChargeCar conversion parts kit
* Our public EV charging stations
* Other EVs--if you have one, please bring it!
Bring some chairs. We'll be showing "Revenge of the Electric Car" on our "big screen" outside, with fresh popcorn

Open House tomorrow evening at the Electric Garage

> What: Informal open house
> When: Thursday, July 19, 6-7 PM
> Where: The Electric Garage, 4621 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15243
> Who: Open to the public
> Why: To see the new Ford plug-in hybrid vehicles

This week we are privileged to be hosting Chris Lear, Senior Development Engineer in Ford's Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle group, along with a team of engineers and five plug-in hybrid vehicles (four Ford C-Max Energi PHEVs and one Fusion Energi PHEV, see photo). The team has driven from Michigan for evaluation testing, taking advantage of Pittsburgh's hilly terrain, and the availability of level 2 charging at the Electric Garage. If you'd like to talk to the Ford engineers and see the latest plug-in hybrid vehicles from Ford, please attend an informal gathering Thursday evening 6-7PM at the Electric Garage.

Hope to see you then!

Ben

H. Ben Brown
Project Scientist
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

Harless CREATE Satellite Has Year-End Celebration

The June Harless Center for Rural Educational Research and Development, College of Education at Marshall University, held a year-end celebration showcasing Harless CREATE Satellite projects on May 17, 2012 from 6-8 in the Memorial Student Center’s Don Morris Room.  

Featured projects included: the GigaPan Outreach Project, Arts and Bots, Hear Me, and Message From Me. In addition, a new WaterBot project was introduced.  GigaPan enables students to take GigaPan panoramic images of their communities and activities and share them with peers across the world. Arts and Bots is a customized robot designed to integrate technology, literature, and history through the use of art supplies, circuit boards, lights, motors and sensors. Hear Me seeks to amplify kids voices using media and technology to create a world where kids are heard, acknowledged and understood, thereby giving them the power to inspire change in their lives, communities and the world. WaterBot is a citizen scientist project that prototypes a low-cost, easy and mobile method to monitor water quality, empowering communities, educators and children to monitor their watershed systems.

 

 

The Harless CREATE Satellite grant, which was funded by the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, provides rural Appalachian schools continuous and seamless access to technologies, educational resources and ideas generated at the CREATE Lab in Pittsburgh. In addition it enabled teachers to integrate cutting edge technology into existing curriculum.   

Schools showcasing projects are from the Marshall University Professional Development Partnership Schools and include the Early Education STEM Center, Huntington High, Kellogg, Guyandotte and Ceredo Elementary schools, Beverly Hills, Milton, Barboursville Middle schools, as well as Cherry River Elementary in Nicholas county, Beverly Elementary in Randolph county and South Point High School in Ohio.

 

 

ChargeCar open house this Friday. June 8

What: ChargeCar open house

When: Friday, June 8, 6-8PM

Where: The Electric Garage, 4621 Forbes Avenue, Oakland 15213 (100 yards east of Craig Street)

Why: To celebrate our eight new, Eaton, level-1/level-2 electric vehicle charging stations, now available for free public use!

Who: Everyone welcome. If you have an electric vehicle, bring it!

Parking: Limited parking is available at the Garage. Car-pooling and other fuel-saving alternatives are encouraged. Additional parking will be available at the Morewood lot on Forbes Avenue, just east of the Electric Garage.

For more information about the Electric Garage and ChargeCar project, please visit www.chargecar.org.

Charge Car Open House and Demonstration

 

When: Friday March 25, 3:00-6:00 PM

 Where: Electric Garage (old University Exxon) 


Come to the Electric Garage to inspect the first production prototype ChargeCar. We will have our technical staff on hand to describe the car's technologies, provide rides in all of the ChargeCar electric vehicles and discuss the costs of conversions locally. 

We will also open the very first Pittsburgh ChargeCar waiting list for signatures and will be ready to take the name of those serious about purchasing/converting their own electric vehicles at a local garage. The waiting list reservation requires a $50, fully refundable deposit.

There will be a special community participation call for suggestions in identifying a deserving nonprofit in this region that could benefit from an electric vehicle that ChargeCar could produce early in 2011. 

Refreshments and light snacks will be served. 

Read more about this event

Learn more about charge car at chargecar.org


ChargeCar's Electric Garage is located at the former Exxon Gas Station on the 4600 block of Forbes Avenue, next to CMU.
A map of the area can be found: here

Last Summer ChargeCar Event: Fri July 30

We would like to invite you to our final community event and cookout of the summer on Friday, July 30th at 7pm, at the Electric Garage.

We will be hosting a public policy community day. In addition to invited members and representatives from local government and Pittsburgh's Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP), CMU professor and former NASA astronaut Jay Apt will be giving a presentation on the electric grid.  Professor Apt will begin at 8:30pm.

     

    The Electric Garage is located at the former Exxon Gas Station on the 4600 block of Forbes Avenue, next to CMU

    Map and directions here

    pre-garage Street view:


    View Larger Map

     

    To stay up to date on all things ChargeCar, please visit www.chargecar.org and join our forum and mailing list.

    ChargeCar July 23rd Community Event and Cookout

    Join us at the Electric Garage this Friday evening at 7PM.

    We will be hosting a town-hall-style meeting/forum. This week, in addition to our normal open house, we'd like to switch it up a bit and invite everyone to suggest future community events and projects, as well as talk about anything that is EV related.

    To get the gears turning, here are a few questions that we've already brainstormed: 
    • Roughly ten years ago, electric vehicles gained a lot of visibility and popularity when car companies offered EVs to consumers and corporate fleets. Today, we can easily see the momentum gaining again, so how can we prevent a repeat of the last EV boom's decline?  Ten years later, what is different that would make it easier (or more difficult) us to do so?
    • While car companies are making large strides in the direction of EV production, some of them say that the future success of EVs will be largely based on collaboration between car companies.  Others can argue that competition is a large factor in moving the auto industry forward.  Is the EV going to foster a new age of automotive collaboration, or will competition lead the way?
    • On the policy side of progress, some countries are mandating that a certain percentage of public transportation use alternative fuel by a certain date. Can EVs be a part of this ideal, or should popularity and usage be left up to consumers?
    • How is ChargeCar different from the solutions from auto makers both now, and in the future?  What can we do to make ChargeCar a viable option?

     

    The Electric Garage is located at the former Exxon Gas Station on the 4600 block of Forbes Avenue, next to CMU

    Map and directions here

    pre-garage Street view:


    View Larger Map

     

    To stay up to date on all things ChargeCar, please visit www.chargecar.org and join our forum and mailing list.