In the past year, gas prices have risen to more than $3 per gallon.
During that same time, area high school students built cars that get hundreds of miles to the gallon.
On April 30, students from Warsaw, Whitko and Wawasee high schools competed in the 2007 Indiana Mathematics, Science and Technology Education Alliance Super Mileage Challenge at O'Reilly Raceway Park, Indianapolis, against dozens of other schools.Warsaw students competed in the stock class and won the Performance Concept Award for coming closest to their projected mileage of between 700 to 800 mpg. The yellow No. 75 car placed third with 751.17 mpg. In one race, Warsaw's car got 1,129 mpg.
In the same class, Whitko placed 12th with 153.38 mpg with their first car. For the stock class cars, schools can modify their cars as they want as long as they use the stock engine, which is a sealed engine.
In the Unlimited Class, Wawasee placed fourth for getting 1,192.54 mpg. Whitko placed 11th with 383.30 mpg with their second car.
Joe Bryan, Warsaw faculty advisor, said building the car was done all on the students' own time. "It was just done after school and some weekends. It should be a class," he said, as it is an exercise in manufacturing, science, sales, math and engineering. "They're working together as a team. It's no different than what they're doing in Indianapolis at the Indy 500."
At Wawasee and Whitko, the Super Mileage Challenge is part of a class.
Allen Coblentz's Fundamentals of Engineering class at Wawasee take on the challenge each year. Coblentz said most of the students in the class have had other design classes before his class. They have to come up with a design and build the car. The good thing about the class is that the students can use their design and see if it works.
Two classes build Whitko's two cars, Jay Ocken's Transportation Processes and Transportation Systems classes. Ocken said designing and building the cars is a good way to introduce students to braking and other systems in cars. They are not automotive classes, but the skills the students learn in his classes can transfer over to that, he said. Ocken also teaches machine shop and welding classes and students in those classes also help with the cars.
Though Whitko has two cars, Ocken said their budget is only $600, while some schools have budgets of more than $12,000.
Bryan said students learn quite a bit from the Challenge experience. "It's a real eye opener for the kids. They work well together. We got down there and they ran the show," he said. They form a pit crew and they switched off on responsibilities.
"The big thing I see is the problem solving. The constant problem solving," said Bryan of what the students learned.
Fourteen students from Warsaw were involved in the making and running of the car, including seniors Andrew Hood, Christine Johnson, Kyle Messmore, Tony Shilling; juniors Mercedes Plummer, Joel Shilling; sophomore Kevin Rich; and freshmen Chris Allen, Devon Lockridge, Rafael Nascimento, Kyle Schneider, Augusto Nascimento and Alf Eherenman.
Warsaw's team started late, in November. At first, Bryan said they were going to modify the car they had, but with all the modifications they were going to make, the team decided to build a new one. By the time Warsaw completed its 10 race heaps, students put in hundreds of hours into the car.
"The frame was made from scratch," said Bryan. He said all the students did a great job and was a great learning experience for them.
"It was a lot of fun this year," said Tony Shilling, a Warsaw team co-captain. "This was my second year of doing it. It's a brand new car. The race day was really good. We had no problems with the car, which was good for the first time. We had a flat tire on the last race. ... I was very happy. Everything came out really well."
Warsaw co-captain Kyle Messmore said this year went a lot better than last year. "It seems like everything was planned out better. We were more experienced so we knew what was going on," he said.
Wawasee students involved in the Challenge this year included Pierce Abbott, Brent Flaugh, Jeremy Nyikos, Samuel Patrick, Douglas Read, Cory Smith and Brice Brown.
"We pretty much used the same design as an older car we used, but lowered the body," said Flaugh. It also was the same motor. They redesigned the steering from last year, he said, and worked in groups.
Abbott said building the car took two trimesters. Some days they stayed after school, and even worked on the car during spring break. All the work paid off as they more than exceeded their expectations.
"We had guessed at 800 miles per gallon," said Jeremy Nyikos. "Once we got down there, our expectations got blown away."
Other schools' cars were intimidating, the Wawasee students said, at first.
"They were a lot more intimidating than we thought they were going to be," said Abbott. Flaugh said after the races, some of the cars they thought they would be intimidated by, they didn't need to be.
Overall, Nyikos said he learned it takes a lot of teamwork to get a good product. Flaugh said it also takes a lot of time. Doug Read said they learned about getting sponsorships.
All the students at Wawasee involved in the Challenge this year are seniors, but Patrick. Nyikos said they were "very" disappointed they won't get to do it again. Read said racing the car was the highlight of his senior year.
Whitko junior Chris Snyder said the Challenge was a valuable experience. "It was a lot of fun," he said. "You learn a lot more about the work you've done. It prepares you for next year."
Ocken said the red car was modified a little from last year, and the Whitko students were able to increase the mpg by 40. The blue car, said Snyder, was new last year. This year, he said they made quite a few modifications to the blue car, including the rear.
The hardest part of modifying the cars, said Steven Keplinger, was lining up the engine. "If it's not perfectly straight," he said, "you'll throw the chain every time, like we did."
For next year, Snyder said they will shorten up the frame quite a bit, and move the wheels forward closer to the output shaft of the engine to reduce the distance of the chain.
Adrienne Carrico was the only woman on the Whitko team this year. "I helped with communications and keeping track of the laps and communication with the drivers," she said.
"She fed us the best cookies in the world," said Keplinger.
Other team members include Brian Busz, Talon Stump, Alex Snyder, Marvin Chavers, Joe Craft, Tyler Elder, Doru Aldea, J.D. Pratt and Caleb Pratt.
The best part of the whole challenge, said Casey Renschler, was the race. "Watching it run," he said, "see how well it would do."
"I think we did better than I thought we'd do," said Adam Craft.
Renschler said Whitko's team has placed in the top 15 for the past several years. That's something they can be very proud of, he said.
