Engineering Lessons Based on Top Gear Fails

Top Gear is a car show, now ended. The guys in it often did challenges with the words "How hard can it be?", which is the English equivalent of "Hey Bubba, Watch this!", which is an actual Darwin Award phrase. One of my classes last semester (semester is over now), was about teaching classes. The upside of this exercise is its meant to teach you to think of things you see as potential ways to get the attention of classrooms of kids, teens, or adults (college) students needing something more educational and interesting than "lecture, reading, report" sort of lessons.

The great thing about this phrase is this was a fine way to introduce examples of really terrible engineering, which they knew were terrible, but made the point by doing it badly, and this was comedy. One of my favorites of these was the Caravan Challenge. These are actually homemade motorhomes, based on really bad choices of vehicle. That was part of the comedy.

So imagine an entry level engineering class at your local community college to improve on this? Form groups, brain storm, and what would you do better?

1. Use a proper van or truck frame for the vehicle, with a big enough engine. A V8 is a good idea. One with sufficient cooling and the right gears to haul lots of weight. If the top part is wrecked or missing this is fine. Install things like water tanks before you build the rest. 
2. Use common materials for the frame so going around a corner won't tear it apart. In modern times this means either tube steel or aluminum. Either can be welded by a reasonably competent home shop 220 V-AC welder. The frame outlines your living space and provides support for the interior and cover. Make sure it is big enough, but not ridiculous. 
3. Cover the frame with either fiberglass, thin plywood (less common but was a practical option once), and keep the total height below 12 feet. The 18 foot tall example here was for comedy. 
4. Add insulation so it is warm enough for expected conditions where you plan to camp. In the Sierras, this means below freezing, even during summer. In Cornwall, in the video above, 50'F is as cool as it gets. Blocking the wind and a small electric heater should do. 
5. Work out your heater setup, and the battery use if electric, and install the battery and charging so it will work. And make sure the car alternator that charges the batteries won't fry doing this, with a cutoff so it won't overcharge and catch fire. 
6. Work out the propane setup for your stove and heater, if you use it. Remember that expanding propane gas absorbs heat which can freeze up the expansion chamber, creating ice until it seizes. It is common for propane heaters to shut off due to freezing in cold temps, meaning the design is seriously flawed in the real world. Using a light bulb to heat the expansion chamber can solve the problem, but it uses a lot of electricity to work, meaning you need more battery. Sometimes the right answer is not propane, but a smaller pellet stove and a car battery to run its electric system. Keep that in mind. 
7. If you decide to use a white gas stove setup, only do this with good ventilation. The benzene is toxic and the CO (carbon monoxide) will kill you. Good ventilation is a good idea regardless, but it also removes your heat if it is cold. I mention this because it is deep winter and I spent 15 minutes de-icing my car this morning. There was black ice everywhere this morning. Most of that melted this afternoon but if it doesn't dry enough we'll have more tonight. At 83% humidity, I expect more black ice. 
8. Carry enough fresh water for the expected duration of your trip. Also carry enough grey and black water tanks for your expected waste. And setup the thing to be easy to dump without getting dirty yourself, and the cleanout valve/connector is much recommended. If you do this right it is easy to do without getting splashed or filthy with human waste and blue stuff, neither of which is the least bit tolerable. 
9. Seriously consider a prefiltered tank, a filter system, and a pump or boiling system to transfer from grey water and then treat back into clean water. This might not work, so testing should be done. Prefilter tank would be a place to put untrusted water like river or stream water, filled from buckets or rainwater, then slowly treated and shifted into the main clean tank for use. If you can re-use some of the grey water that will allow you to extend your time on vacation before resupply, especially in desert areas like Nevada. Power or heat to do this is the challenge. 
10. Install solar panels on the roof, and batteries to hold the power, with vents so they won't make the cabin explode when the hydrogen released during charging, and heaters on the batteries so they work even when cold. 
11. Also install a traditional gasoline powered generator, a quiet one. 
12. Install an Air Conditioner, with a heat exchanger. This should be simple since they're made for this. Also install a CO and CO2 detector so the heat exchanger keeps the air flow moving to prevent suffocation. If the trailer is too airtight, you can die of suffocation. 
13. Don't drive too fast, and remember to pull over regularly to allow people by. 

I'm pretty sure that the above things make up most existing commercial RV's today, especially class C and B types. Despite the video, there were plenty of commercial examples which they could have driven, showing their potential for speed and polite driving. Caravanists don't pull over in the UK, which is why they're hated. They block the highways. Top Gear wanted to demonstrate faster RVs, and failed. If they were a bit more serious they might have succeeded. Winnebago, for instance, has a V10 engine with supercharger or turbo (forget which) that boosts the power enough to haul its own weight up a mountain pass road at full freeway speed.

Climbing over real world passes this is important. While Donner Pass is 7229 feet, there are several passes over 8000 feet along highway 395, which runs north and south down the back of the Sierras. Many caravans and RVs traverse this road during the spring, summer, and fall, and it s a primary route for Snow Birds, the collective name for retired people with RVs who winter in Yuma Arizona (or Florida) and summer in the high country and mountain meadows which are so pretty and peaceful and get tens of feet of snow during the winter months. If you tried to come up with a similar trick in Europe this would be like wintering in southern Italy or Spain or Greece and summer in Sweden.