WVU's AFVTP - September 1994 Newsletter

West Virginia University's Alternative Fuel Vehicle Training Program

This on-line facility is managed by the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Dept. at WVU. Please contact Randolph Churchill, PhD (email = churchill@faculty.coe.wvu.edu) with questions and comments.

The Alternate Fuel Vehicle Training Program (AFVTP) Newsletter is a monthly feature of the AFVTP and is intended to be keep the lines of communication open between our training team, students, advisors and other interested parties. We would like to continue transmitting this by FAX to all interested parties but we need permission to do so, submit your request for FAX versions of this newsletter to the fax/address at the end of the newsletter. Include your name, affiliation, address, phone, and fax.

This month's issue is devoted to presenting the layout and asking for responses to help make future versions useful and enjoyable.

We have heard ...

Sign in office of Carol May - AGA NGV Marketing Liaison: No Parking Except for Natural Gas Vehicles Per order of Rhode Island Convention Center

AFVTP Announcements

The Alternative Fuel Vehicle Training Program has successfully completed its formative first year of development, testing, and implementation of NGV Training seminars. Our training manuals, aids and techniques have been shared with many instructors from around the country and our students have already initiated their own local training courses. Two satellite teleconferences have been aired from the WVU campus to sites around the country and the responses have been tremendous. The participation in the first conference was several times that expected and the reviews have been very positive. The busy second phase of our program begins this month.

The management team expresses their gratitude to all those who served above and beyond the call for the good of all as our Technical Advisors this past year. We wish you all success as natural gas vehicles become more and more popular.

Look for more useful products and training programs to come from WVU in the future. The emphasis this next year shall be divided between conducting training sessions and developing new training modules for propane, fueling stations and transient emission testing.

Training Tip

This section is devoted to providing advice and ideas to trainers about training methods. Topics such as class management, training aids, testing and in-service will be briefly presented. Some of the items presented are common knowledge but may not be common practice. Please contact AFVTP for additional information.

This month we offer some ideas about making presentations. Presentation skills make or break delivery of any subject matter and we can each identify a good presentation when we see one, but what techniques can we work on to improve our skills? Below is a short list of thought provoking items that may be helpful.

New AFVTP Training Center

This summer the Training Program leased a facility in which training, conversions, and research will be conducted. The buildings into which we have moved used to be a car dealership and service center and was well laid out for our purposes. We have remodeled and further configure the building for our special needs (including racing stripes around the building). Visitors to AFVTP will now join us in Sabraton (10 minutes from downtown Morgantown) at the Center.

Directly adjoining the Center is another building that will soon house the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering's Transportable Heavy Duty Emissions Laboratories. These will be available, as several other WVU labs, for tours during AFVTP training sessions.

AFVTP On-line Service

To bring our colleagues the latest in NGV technical information and training assistance, we have initiated an internet accessible on-line information service. Running a Mosaic server, we have published and will continue to update the bulletin board type service with bibliography lists, contacts, vendor product announcements, technical articles, classifieds and coming soon - technical problems and solutions from the field; a forum where you can place questions or help out others that have posed a problem.

At this time, the AFVTP Mosaic server is only available from the internet. You can get on the internet (one lane of the Information SuperHighway) via various sources including Compuserve, America On-Line, and others. In a future issue we shall provide contacts and assistance about this option. Unfortunately, these gateways have a connection cost or subscription fee associated with them; typically this fee is a few dollars a month plus phone charges.

We are in the process of distributing our Mosaic server address to other sources that will hopefully set up links to our host. Our service is available to users through URL page http://cira.cira.wvu.edu/afvtp/.

Technical Tip

Every month our AFVTP trainers, lead by William McGlinchey, will facilitate the presentation of a technical tip. Vendors are being asked to submit short notes concerning their particular equipment and these will be included as appropriate. These discussions are not to be considered all encompassing and readers are encouraged to contact AFVTP for details.

Name the Newsletter

Please join the AFVTP Management Team and help select an appropriate name for this monthly newsletter serving the training community. The editor offers "Passing Gas," but realizes conservative monikers may be more suitable.

Calendar

For more information about any topics here or WVU's Alternative Fuel Vehicle Training Program, fax or write the AFVTP Information Service (Attn: Randolph Churchill, PhD) at 304-293-6689 (fax); PO Box 6106, Morgantown, WV 26506-6106. All typos and errors are solely the responsibility of the editor. Please submit corrections, address changes, comments, anecdotes and articles to same.