It’s Alive! Bringing A Product To Market, The Cal Poly SLO Way

Most products on the market today start on the drawing board, but what happens to them next? The next step is usually to create a visual prototype in order for interested parties to evaluate what they are buying or investing in.

Which brings us to Dr. Sarah Harding’s Mechanical Engineering II class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where she teaches students how to bring products to market. As a former Quality Manager at Chrysler, Dr. Harding is an expert at releasing products to market. One of the projects students were assigned last year was to create presentation models of consumer products using Precision Board Plus, which was donated by Coastal Enterprises. Some of the products are serious, and some are designed more for comedic value, as you can see!

Thank you to George Leone at Cal Poly for sending all these pictures!

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Congratulations to Our Contest Winners!

Congratulations to Wray Bassett and George Leone, winners of the Coastal Enterprises Facebook Contest!

Mr. Wray Bassett, owner of Graphic ID Studios in Dover, PA won the Best Design category. Wray’s entry was a sign designed to match the 209 year old building that it hangs on. The sign panel was carved from two 3″ thick PBLT-18 sheets bonded with PB Bond-240 onto a steel armature. The sign was primed using FSC-88WB and painted with an acrylic latex enamel. The lettering is 23k Gold Leaf.

George Leone won the Best Engineered category with Primal 2, the human powered vehicle built by him and his team that can go 70 mph. Check out the full story in our previous blog post.

Thank you to everyone who competed in the contest! Twenty-five runners up will all receive a free 16 oz. bottle of PB-Bond-240 for their participation!

Primal 2 – 70 MPH of Engineering Innovation

There are some who simply work in the mechanical engineering field and others who do not just work in it, but have a passion for it. In the case of George Leone, whom many of you may remember as the Technician in charge of the Cal Poly Hangar Shop, its clear he has a passion for all things mechanical.

Several of our previous stories have covered George and his involvement with Human Powered Vehicles, Supermileage cars and SAE race cars. Well, George recently contacted us about a “side” project he completed and entered into the Boca Bearings 2012 Innovation Competition: A human powered vehicle known as Primal 2 that was built entirely at his house. Grand prize for the Boca Bearings 2012 Innovation Competition is $10,000.

Check out this video about Primal 2, and be sure to vote for the best entry in the Boca Bearings contest as well!

George says if they win the proceeds will be split evenly between Verant Chan, maker of this video to help further his filmmaking career, and the construction of Primal 3, which George hopes will be able to reach 85-90 mph!

Primal 2 was built in the 30′ x 60′ barn George converted into a workshop next to his house. Alongside George, several current and past students, and professors from Cal Poly also helped build Primal 2. The ultimate goal was to achieve the highest miles per hour possible, which meant it needed to be as aerodynamic and efficient as possible while also maintaining a high level of safety.

To make the aerodynamic body, George used Precision Board Plus PBLT-4 and hand shaped a plug for the car body. It was shaped on a custom made rotisserie fabricated from two Harbor Freight engine stands. The plug was then sprayed with Duratec to make a mold for the car body. Finding that the initial body was not as aerodynamic as they liked, Duratec was sanded off of the existing plug and more PBLT-4 was added to alter the plug. The resulting changes in the body shape led to a 4 mph increase. Car body is fiberglass exterior, kevlar interior with 6k carbon bands for stiffening. Divinicell ribs wrapped in carbon post-bonded and covered with kevlar provide extra strength. Chassis is chrome moly steel tubing built by Dan Baggs a local San Luis Obispo frame builder. Primal 2 also has a 5-point racing harness and a rollbar.


Primal 2 was completed in a record 51 days. Most human powered vehicles take an average 2 years to complete! A lifelong surfer, George has lots of experience shaping surfboards which helped him develop the fiberglass skills he attributes to the quick finish of Primal 2. The highest speed it reached was 70.4 miles per hour, and it has crossed the 70 mph line on 3 separate occasions. Pretty impressive for a vehicle powered entirely by the human body!


George Leone has been involved in all things mechanical since 1980, volunteering after attending a presentation where several students needed help building a fiberglass car body. Between 1984-1988 George and several other friends completed the worlds first all composite bike. Since then he has grown quite fond of the Human Powered Vehicle concept and has been involved with many teams in years past. His wife, Carole Leone has even been President of the National and International Human Powered Vehicle associations.


Part of the Primal 2 build team: (left to right) Dave Pocock, Carole Leone, Tamaki Layman, Ron Layman(driver), John Pocock (crew chief) and George Leone.

Cal Poly Professor H.P. helping build Primal 2 in George’s shop.

Cal Poly’s 3000 MPG Supermileage Car

George Leone, Student Project Facilitator at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, CA, sent us pictures of a fascinating project one of the student teams is undertaking. Cal Poly students are designing a “Supermileage” car to compete in the Shell Eco-Marathon as part of a class project. The Shell Eco Marathon is designed to challenge high school and college student teams worldwide to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles. The winners are the teams that go the furthest distance using the least amount of energy.

Precision Board Plus PBLT-6 was cut on a CNC router and coated with Duratec to make carbon fiber molds for the body. They then added a 50cc engine for utilizing a tactic known as “burn and coast”, where they let the engine run for a short time and then coast, allowing them to achieve much higher miles per gallon. The MPG goal for this car, named “Lamina”, is 3000 Miles Per Gallon!

Lamina is not completely finished (they are working out final details on forming the windshield), but we have some great pictures of their progress. Additional pictures, including a video of Lamina’s maiden test voyage can be seen here. Stay tuned for a future update with finished pictures!