Warsaw Area Career Center took its first team ever to the Shell Eco-marathon Americas in Houston, Texas, March 30-April 1.
The team came back with a first-place win, new experiences and many memories.
“There were a lot of teams,” said Taylor Stouder. “It was interesting to see all the other teams’ vehicles and what they came up with. For the Urban Concept, there were no two cars alike.”
The Eco-marathon is a challenge for students to design, build and test fuel-efficient vehicles that travel the farthest distance using the least amount of energy. There are three competitions around the world, with the Americas competition featuring university and high school teams from the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
There are two divisions, Prototype and Urban Concept, and several categories in each division.
Under the Urban Concept division, Warsaw won first place in the Alternative Diesel Energy category with its FAME-powered vehicle, Bengal Beast, which achieved 106.1 miles per gallon. For the victory, Warsaw received $2,000 and a trophy.
WACC also took a Prototype car, Stouder said, which they had some problems with it. Warsaw was never able to get a qualifying time with the Prototype car.
Trenton Sumwalt said the problem was they put too much fuel in the starter so no air could get in the motor, then the starter blew.
“We’ve got some stuff to figure out here for Indianapolis,” said Sumwalt, referring to a similar competition at the state level.
He said they need to redo the starter for the Prototype, and put a different air take on the Diesel. The cars also need cleaned up.
“With the Urban Concept, we had some minor problems, but we got a few laps in,” Stouder said.
He said the best part about the experience was “being out on the track racing. Seeing our car we spent 1-1/2 years on go down the track and not have any problems.”
Landon Slone said the experience was “very eye opening. Just to see how universities and high schools put their cars together and in how everyone worked together to get their car going. It was also lots of fun.
“The whole experience was very eye-opening. The best experience was running our car in our class in Urban Concept.”
During the race, Slone said, they had to have a strategy to stop the car three times for 10 seconds each time as part of the race. The total time limit for the 10 laps the cars had to run could not exceed 24 minutes, 45 seconds. Slone said his best lap time was on the winning run with 1 minute, 45 seconds left.
“Teamwork is a big one,” Slone said of what he learned. “Everyone has their own ideas. Coming together is definitely a big experience.”
Sumwalt said he learned “how to work together and with other teams from other countries and with who we took. I learned to work with what we have instead of going to get things.”
Warsaw is taking its cars to the Supermileage Challenge in Indianapolis later this month. Slone said he’d like to improve the cars to get more miles to the gallon, and get more air in the motor.
Before the Houston contest, Slone said they didn’t have any runs with the body on the car. That was a big thing, he said, but everyone is happy with their car.
“Everyone had a little piece go into the car, so it’s our baby,” Slone said. “We started in August with a pile of scrap and our ideas, and we brought home a win.”
The boys didn’t have a lot of down time, but Sumwalt said one of his best memories of the trip was doing a photo shoot with their car in the Houston convention center. “I thought that was pretty cool,” he said.
Richard Hernandez said being the first year for Warsaw to have a team down there, it was an all-around great experience. He said there were people from other countries, and it was interesting to see other cars.
Driving on the track was a bumpy experience because the Houston roads were not smooth, Hernandez said. Drivers had to wear a jumpsuit, which increased the temperature more than 100 degrees.
“Overall, though, it was a pretty good experience,” Hernandez said.
He said that while they got first place, he thinks they can do better than that. For the Indianapolis competition, Hernandez said they will work on improvements.
“If we fix our problems, we should blow it out of the water,” he said.
Kyler Pence said Warsaw’s Urban Concept car got a lot of attention.
“I did like the attention,” Pence said. “Everyone liked our car. A lot of people said they liked it because it really looked like a vehicle you’d see on the streets with the curves, turn signal, mirrors and all that.”
Pence worked on the brakes and tires of the cars and said they came out pretty well. He didn’t see any improvements they needed to make on them.
“Don’t want to add more weight,” Spence said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
He said Warsaw should keep going back every year to Houston.
“If we can push ourselves to do better, we can show people what we can do. And it’s a great experience. Also, it’s an international competition and Warsaw pulls out in front of it,” Pence said.
“Nick Kuhn was a hard worker,” teacher and advisor Joe Bryan said of the student who was unable to make the interviews Tuesday morning. “He was always there, always working. He’s really good in a team setting. He’s an important part of the team. He was important, he really was, to our effort.”
“We really worked a lot on the car,” said Omar Cardenas. “We took what we had and learned from it. We learned from other teams and they learned from us.”
Bryan said Warsaw’s car got second for best design as voted on by the public. He said he was pretty proud of the guys and all the hard and long work they put into them.
“They all realized when it was over it was a special time for them,” Bryan said. “I’m happy for them. I’m really happy for them.”
