JHC Projects

We are excited to present to you our electric superbike: JHC Ukkonen. Our superbike project began in the autumn of 2019. The idea came from Motorclub Imatra, and it is meant to be an annual project for LUT University and LAB University of Applied Sciences students who are interested in improving the previous year's model.

Photo: Eero Scherman

JHC Ukkonen’s goal is to achieve the best possible performance in the lightest possible package. It uses a ready-made engine and engine controller, but the body as a whole and the battery are designed by students at LUT. The bike is designed with optimal performance in mind.

The bike's design and all of its parts have been modeled virtually. The durability and strength of the structure, the shapes of the motorcycle and the use of the material have been optimized with computer-aided FEM calculation.

The bike does not have a gearbox, but it has a very precisely adjustable accelerograph. The bike accelerates from zero to a hundred kilometers per hour in only a couple of seconds, and it is powered by eight aluminum-encapsulated battery modules. The battery life is rated to last for about five laps. The weight of the bike will be about 190 kilograms – around the same as a normal superbike.

The idea of the bike is to serve as a prototype, accelerating the development of the transport industry and the dissemination of knowledge.

JHC Ukkonen offers thesis opportunities as well as topics and content for courses and research. The bike is constantly being developed further, so it will provide meaningful work for plenty of students for years to come.

The main purpose of JHC Ukkonen is to offer students a practical annual project alongside their theoretical courses. Continuity is also an important goal for us: we want to make Ukkonen better each year, competing with other universities in the development of the fastest superbike. The superbike is most obviously connected to technology studies, but students from other fields are also needed to build it. So far, over 30 people have been involved in building Ukkonen.

Jamie Hyneman has helped the team select technical solutions, such as materials and components. He has validated the team's own choices by drawing on his experience and extensive network of contacts. For example, calculations for the controller and motor have been verified by friends of Hyneman’s who work for a US motorcycle manufacturer.

Hyneman would like the LUT protolab and its equipment to give students the feeling that anything is possible. Their experience should be: "I had the idea, and then I had the thing. Wow!"

"Commercial knowledge is essential here. It's excellent that JHC operates as part of the LUT Business School,” Hyneman says.

“An idea is kind of pointless if it remains unused. You need to know how to market the idea to people."

Hyneman visited LUT in April 2023 and attended JHC Spring Seminar.

We are building a relatively simple telepresence robot, Hynebot, that can act as a substitute or a kind of an avatar for a physically distant teacher in a prototype laboratory. This device is built as a student project by using common and inexpensive components. Come and follow our project!

Hynebot is a camera eye and robot arm connected to a microphone, loudspeaker and moveable platform, all controlled remotely. It doesn't function like some programmed robots that would require at least some artificial intelligence. It's a tool that wakes up to work only when someone remotely connects to it and starts using it.

Visiting teachers can all use the same robot, and thus, the knowledge of the robot depends a great deal on the skills of the person using it. Students can also use the robot to ask questions from the user at the other end.

The robotic system includes several components: a camera, a main processor for video processing and wireless communication, speakers for remote user audio, an embedded auxiliary processor (traction motor control), a manipulator arm, batteries, and required peripherals such as indicator lights.