Wawasee Car Class Recalls Competition

SYRACUSE – Placing first, second and eighth at the Shell Eco-marathon Americas April 1 in Houston, Texas, are accomplishments the Wawasee High School students and teacher Allen Coblentz are proud of.

With a best run of 1,290 miles per gallon, the Wawasee diesel car won first place under the Prototype division in the Diesel Energy category. The team received $2,000 and a trophy. The team this year beat Wawasee’s own record last year by more than 600 mpg.

The Battery Electric car got 940 mpg, good enough for second place in its category, while the gasoline car got 933 mpg, earning Wawasee eighth place in that category.

Senior Christian Henn drove the gasoline car at the international competition.

“You can’t see a whole lot,” Henn said of the experience. “You pick your line on the track and don’t deviate from it unless you have to.”

The car doesn’t have any suspension, so it was a “really bumpy” ride, Henn said. “Every little bump, you feel.”

Henn said he was chosen to drive the car because he’s lightweight and a good driver. 

“I was told while I was down there that I was an extremely smooth driver. So that’s a compliment. I enjoy driving so it’s a natural fit,” Henn said.

Henn drove the car last year, too, when the team placed ninth. He said to improve the car this year, and wind up in eighth place, they got a smaller engine for the car and redid most of the drive train.

All the students involved in the cars got to work on all three of them, Henn said, until the teams got to Houston. Then each student just worked on the car they were assigned. 

Working on the gasoline car with Henn were Chris Fox and Tyler Kissinger. Fox was the crew chief and Kissinger did whatever else was needed.

The experience at Houston last year and this year will help him in the future, Henn said.

“I have far more experiences than other engineering students going into college, according to the professors I’ve talked to,” Henn said. 

He has experience with Manual Mills, Manual Lathes as well as CNC Mills and CNC lathes, he said. 

Kissinger said the whole competition in Houston was great. The whole downtown of the city was blocked off for the contest.

“I think we did well because we competed against colleges that had more money than us and we still did well,” Kissinger said.

He said he thought Wawasee’s teams did well because of past experience and help they got from Coblentz and Larry Pletcher.

Pletcher, a retired teacher, volunteers with Coblentz’s students. He said the students were really motivated to build and compete with the cars. 

“That’s one of the fun things about being here – they’re excited. We have quite a few students signed up for next year,” Pletcher said.

This was the first year Wawasee took three cars instead of two, Pletcher said. The students worked after school and Saturdays to get them done. 

“I’m pretty sure we were in a spot where the competition was tougher, but we ran better,” said Pletcher. “Coblentz deserves a lot of the credit. He knows what he’s doing. The program is not what it is without him. He’s an amazing guy. Very well liked. He has a way of getting work and quality work from these kids and pride in their work.”

Senior Matt Siri was involved with Wawasee’s electric car.

“It was pretty good. It was nice,” Siri said of the sixth annual competition.

The custom motor Siri developed for the electric car never made it to the track, he said. Two of the transmitters stopped working the morning of the competition.

Siri said at one point the Wawasee car was in third place, but they put in a hub motor, which they had taken apart, cleaned and modified it. They got back to second place.

“What I wanted to go for was the technical innovation award,” Siri said, but he didn’t get to talk to the judge about his motor.

Senior Westin Becker drove the first-place diesel car.

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who could fit into that car,” Becker said. “It’s shorter than the other two.”

The course was on Houston roads, so it was very bumpy, Becker said. It was all “left turns, but a lot of fun,” he said. Cars were packed in each race.

“I spent a lot of time on the high school track, finding my technique and knowing when to burn,” Becker said. “I think a lot of the schools didn’t have that much practice.”

Placing first, Becker said, was “pretty sweet. We got first last year so we had high expectations, but I didn’t think we’d double last year’s (record).”

He said he learned a lot, especially from Coblentz.

“He’s a big role model, a big influence,” Becker said. “What he told me, I’ll probably never forget.”

Chris Fox, gasoline car crew chief, said, “It was pretty great. I went last year. This was my second year. I think we functioned more as a team this year.”

Some of the changes the team made in the cars this year compared to last year, Fox said, were they replaced the gasoline car’s engine with a smaller one, and they worked on the steering in all the cars. They tried out new tires that were more rolling resistant.

“We lightened them up a lot,” Fox said. “We drilled a lot of holes. We remade some parts that were steel with lighter components. On the gas car, we just cut down on the engine weight.”

For next year’s cars, he suggested they go with an electric fuel injector on the gas car. It’s way more efficient than a carburator, he said. He also suggested they redesign the car bodies, make them lighter.

“It was a great feeling to know we’re down there competing against colleges and universities and we were able to beat everyone else, just as a small Midwest school,” he said.

Coblentz said every year is a little different. He tries to leave it up to the kids as to what they want to do as it is their project. 

The students build on what past years have done and add their own ideas. 

Coblentz said he’s very proud of his students and commends their work.

“What they will go on to do, a lot will go on to be engineers and in computer science. Their knowledge was incredible and it showed up in the results I think,” he said.

Pletcher said, “It was an amazing experience for the kids. They’ll remember this a long time.”