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S&T's Human Powered Vehicle Team, the nation's most successful collegiate pedal-powered design team, overcame mechanical breakdowns, a moss-covered roadway, wicked crashes and a 4,300-mile road trip to take 3rd place in the ASME's highly-competitive West Coast design challenge this past weekend in Portland, Oregon.
The Miners, the first team ever to sweep both East and West events in one year ('07), set a blistering pace in the sprint races behind Whittney Metcalf's early run that no team could match. Ben Kettler put the Fear of Miners in the other 24 teams when he accelerated so quickly he literally "burned rubber", spinning his rear-drive wheel at the starting line.
Typically the sprint times get faster and faster as teams get the feel of the course and get over pre-race jitters, but mechanical problems shut down S&T after just a few runs. The male Miners were so pumped at the start that they kept shearing the cotter pins holding the gear interchange, essentially wrecking the bike's transmission leaving the men unable to build faster and faster speeds as the course dried off. While Whittney's blazing speed held up through the morning the men had to settle for 3rd place in the sprints, which combined make up 30% of a team's total score.
The afternoon hours were devoted to re-working the problematic areas and scouring Portland for replacement parts, a relatively easy task in a town where it seems everyone rides a bike to work or just for fun. Fortunately our hosts, S&T alums David and Giuseppa Heineck, '70 ChemE and '83 GeoE, respectively, knew exactly where to direct the Miners for parts and by dinner time the bike was fixed.
Early the next morning the Beaverton business campus that Tektronix calls home and where the races were held was cleared of cars, and hay bales were set up to cushion riders from any fixed obstacles they might encounter should an accident occur.
There were, however, obstacles that couldn't be cleared by race time; heavy fog, a wet roadway and moss-covered asphalt in some of the high-speed turns. Oh, yeah, and a competing rider that didn't know which way to turn, but more on that later...........
Everyone knows that it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest. That mild-but-moist climate results in lush greenery that is a joy to behold unless you have to ride fast on it with little skinny tires. The first S-turn, a tree-shaded area where moss grows in the asphalt, was the site of many crashes including a spectacular 1st-lap wreck by S&T's female rider Silvey Britton. Silvey rode hard into the turn and instantly lost traction, smashing into the curb and heavily damaging the bike's canopy. Her mandatory bicycle helmet saved her from serious injury so aside from a little elbow road rash and hyper-ventilating
she was able to keep riding. Crashes are a normal part of pedal-powered racing so many teams station support crews at critical course points to help right errant riders, and this turn saw a lot of action as in the same corner Miner rider David Long later had to avoid another errant cyclist. At Silvey's point of impact Ross Brutsman helped calm her down, stay in the bike and get back in the race because female riders must complete at least two laps before giving way to the men or the team will lose serious racing points. The loss of the canopy wasn't that big a deal because this road course emphasized handling over speed, and had only one long straightaway that straddled the start/finish line.
Over the 65Km race the Miners continued to claw back from the lost time in the first wreck. We say "first" wreck because most of the S&T riders crashed at least once, but the fairing is designed for aerodynamic advantage and rider protection so injuries were limited to skinned elbows. As designer Andrew Sourk said "everyone who gets into this program understands that road rash is part of the game", and all of the Miner riders were sporting gauze bandages by race end.
Whittney and Andrew keep tabs on the riders and develop strategy to determine which riders go when, and for how long. S&T riders have no place to put their feet down like some other teams, so pit changes are brutal events. S&T's Transgressor has to be escorted through the pits to a waiting crew who yanks one rider out of the bike and drops another in, then buckled up and pushed off.
Follow-on riders Cleve Wilcher (above) and Evan Kluessner continued to make up time throughout the race, coming home hot on the heels of west-coast power and close friends of the Miners, Cal-Poly, to take home 3rd in the endurance race.

We mentioned a rider that didn't know where to go................

While Silvey had a tough time on the first turn she did a masterful job of avoiding a pile-up at the start. The women's sprint winner determines which school gets the pole position in the endurance race so S&T had the inside corner. When the green flag came down the rider from an "unidentified" school mistook pit lane for the race course and suddenly cut directly in front of Silvey and the other trailing hot rods. These are performance vehicles best known for high-speed stability and they can be a bit squirrelly (to say the least) right out of the starting blocks, so Silvey deserves tremendous credit for keeping the paint job intact during a very rough start.

The other rider was penalized appropriately for this stunt, in case you were wondering.

Lastly, this story wouldn't be complete without a tip of the hat to our Portland-area alumni who provided invaluable hospitality to the road-weary team. We already mentioned that Dave and Giuseppa Heinick provided lodging for most of the team, but they also prepared a great meal for the crew upon arrival in Portland. Dave is also an exceptional bike rider who knew where to to find the best bike shops in town.
Other Miner alums who rolled out the red carpet were Ray ('93 Physics) and Donna Vandiver who not only provided great meals and a place to sleep, but Ray (on the left in the photo) also gave some students a late-night VIP guided tour of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry's DaVinci exhibit, OMSI's USS Blueback, the U.S. Navy's last non-nuclear, fast-attack submarine moored next to the museum, and perhaps most impressive to the students, OMSI's workshop and exhibit manufacturing areas.

Rounding out the list of MSM/UMR/S&T alums who did amazing things for the Rolla team were Matt ('97 EMgt) and Wendy Houser (and their cool dog, Gordo) who put up the remainder of the team across the Columbia River in nearby Battle Line, Washington.

Matt is president of the Portland section of the Miner Alumni Association, also an avid cyclist, and he arranged a dinner where S&T alumni hosted a group meeting and dinner at a river-front restaurant in downtown beautiful (and it IS beautiful) Portland. The alums treated the students to a great dinner (do you see a trend here?) and in turn were treated to a great technical presentation about the project by team president and top rider Whittney Metcalf. The students at this and other S&T out-of-town events get quite a lift from the moral, logistical, and financial support that so many S&T alumni provide for their educational descendants. We so often hear from alums that "I wish I had THESE teams at Rolla when I was there!", and while our supporters might technically be ineligible for team membership, we assure you that all of our design teams have members of all ages riding along on these events.

The Miners' newest and sleekest Human Powered Vehicle yet made a strong showing at the ASME competition in Philadelphia Saturday and Sunday.
Team President Whittney Metcalf won the women's sprint race at a blistering 41.8 mph, shattering the old team record of 38.2 mph. Teammate Ben Kettler's 44.6 mph was good for second place, just a half-mile per hour off the mark set by defending national champion Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and slightly faster than even S&T's now-graduated uber rider Jerrod Bouchard's personal best. Those speeds are a tribute not just to our riders' conditioning but to the engineering skills invested in the vehicle's design. The sprint marks followed an excellent performance in the design competition where the team finished a close second place. The combination of high sprint speeds and an effective sales pitch had the Miners just 6/10th of a point behind Rose-Hulman going into the all-important 65km endurance race, long a S&T specialty. Andrew Sourk said that "the scoring was so close (between S&T and Rose-Huhlman) that whoever won the endurance race would take the overall event".
The highly-trained Miners have a long history of wearing down their opponents in the long race in which they have to change riders every 15-20 laps or so. These rapid driver swaps typically call for NASCAR-style pit-crews precision when (literally) yanking one rider out and dropping in another, but the race configuration didn't play well to S&T power for 2009.
Whittney tells us the Philadelphia road course was "more like a series of drag races" in which two riders paired off in a series of double-elimination, limited-length road races of less than a mile, instead of the grueling lap-after-lap contest of years past. Those unexpected conditions didn't play to Transgressor's strengths of high speed performance because there were more standing starts relative to the distance ridden.
While S&T may have designed a little too close to the edge with a bike that was optimized for the long straightaways of airports and other wider-open spaces of the last two racing seasons, the Lady Miners managed to complete all of their heats while the men had difficulty with a chain-drive system and were unable to cut into RH's lead.
Andrew also reports that "Rose-Hulman certainly earned the victory and our respect, but I am happy with our second-place finish because everyone on the team did their absolute best this year and we learned a lot about refining our designs".

In just two weeks the Rolla designers will relocate nearly 2,900 miles to the ASME West Coast event in Portland, Oregon where they'll again try to break RH's year-long victory streak. They'll send a crew westward on the grueling (scenic) route while the bulk of the team returns to classes, then takes last-minute flights to the event site, races, and flies back so that they can keep up with their GPAs.

In a surprise press release issued the day before tomorrow's University of Missouri Board of Curators meeting, it was announced that S&T will break ground for the campus' long-rumored full scale wind tunnel at the end of the spring 2009 semester.
The City of Rolla, in a joint statement with Missouri, has applauded this expansion of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and has signed a quit-claim deed to State Street between 11th Street and the Havener Center where the $10 million facility will be built. Rolla Mayor Bill Jenks said "the S&T wind tunnel is a huge coup for Missouri S&T and Rolla, as well as a sign that the university's Research Park is fast becoming a reality". Architectural plans show the Campus Support Facility being torn down for parking, and University Drive will be extended through the US Highway 63 intersection to replace public access to the Havener Center.

This project, which jumped to the top of the UM System's capital improvement plan when an as-yet-unnamed S&T alumnus pledged the total amount, will complement S&T's e-Cubed and Green Initiative programs because the electrical energy used to power the 250+ mph wind speeds will come from the Research Reactor on the S&T campus. The facility's exhaust will then drive a massive wind turbine at the rear of the structure capable of providing most of the campus' energy needs. If engineering projections prove correct S&T's coal-burning power plant will be dismantled and replaced with small banks of high-efficiency solar cells to provide back-up power. Removing the power plant will also provide more space for future campus expansion and significantly reduce green house gasses in south-central Missouri.
The state-of-the-art wind tunnel will be known as the State Street Wind-Aided Tunnel (SSWAT). Several automotive and aerospace firms have already expressed an interest in leasing the facility, which is expected to provide twelve full-time jobs for the S&T campus. The anticipated commercial partnerships are expected to strengthen S&T's relationship with commercial aviation firms that already employ hundreds of Missouri S&T alumni.

For some time there have been reports of crude after-hours wind-tunnel experiments already being conducted on State Street, but the unmarked vehicles have not been traced to any specific university department. Two photographs of these rudimentary experiments shown here, have been circulating on the internet but the source is still unknown.

Student groups are expressing hope that projects such as the FSAE Racing, Human Powered Vehicle, Solar Car, Speed Challenge, Advanced Aero Vehicle, and even the Concrete Canoe teams will be able to use the facility when it is not in use by researchers or commercial firms. Each team will be able to save funds normally used to travel to out-of-state wind tunnels to confirm the students' modeling programs.

The semester starts tomorrow but several Human Powered Vehicle veterans have had a busy semester break. The holidays have been an opportunity for team members to apply and sand Bondo over and over again until the fairing plug was as absolutely smooth (and consequently aerodynamic) as possible. When the work satisfied aerodynamics master Andrew Sourk, team president Whittney Metcalf called in speed challenge partners Ben Kettler and Craig George (both just back after a semester's co-op jobs) to help prime the plug, which resembles some of the professional vehicles seen at the '07 record attempt-setting Nevada races.

Whittney helps a heavily-protected Andrew lay the Bondo and foam plug on its side so as soon as the mix is ready he can start the repetitive back-and-forth spray motions .

Eventually they'll cover the plug in a gel-coat and fiberglass skin which the Miners will then use to lay up the carbon-fiber protective exoskeleton. The '09 fairing design offers each rider a low center of gravity, easy egress and improved visibility. The team is targeting two events this spring about as far apart as one can get; Philadelphia for the east races and Portland, Oregon for the more competitive west coast challenge. They plan to camp along the way to save money and invest the difference in some of the mechanical components they'll need to make it go.

'nuff said?

Just before 7:00 a.m. the Miners pulled in at rural Sauk Prairie Airport and were greeted by snow flurries, which was both a shock and a delight to racers from the Universidad SImon Bolivar in Caracas, Venezuela (more on that later). Blankets, hats and gloves were at a premium as 40 mph winds and 36 degree temperatures had people huddled in their cars. Riders kept bundled until they hit the start line, their support crews are a pretty miserable bunch, and several bikes have been thrown our of control because of the gale-force cross winds. Despite all that Whittney Metcalf managed an initial run of 28+mph, and she wasn't pushing all that hard.

Word is that she just a fraction of a point behind the first-place female rider, with more chances to run this morning. Rumor also has it that S&T is also in 2nd place in the male sprints.

S&T had some real challenges to overcome last night as their designs, which sailed through west-coast races last week, now seem to be called into question. They made a few late-night changes to satisfy the judges, and now seem to be back on course hopefully fighting only the elements and the competition.

Oh, yeah, they are talking about even colder weather tomorrow, with rain and possible sleet, but at least little wind. Maybe if some team brings a human-powered Zamboni to the race, it'll help. Might even win

Unofficially FSAE has taken 3rd in the design finals, right behind Virginia Tech! Amazing!

At 5:00 a.m. in Madison, WI, temperatures are cold and it isn't just windy, the air is positively HOWLING outside! It's going to be VERY rough today for the Human Powered Vehicle Team................

It's late, so we'll make this short.........

Judging for safety, design and aesthetics took place tonight at the 25th annual ASME-sponsored Human Powered Vehicle Competition in Madison, WI. While the results are not yet in, it seems that all the other teams have already voted. With their feet.

The minute Missouri S&T's St Patrick came through the door, all eyes locked on the sharpest and fastest-looking bike at the event, and teams swarmed around Andrew and the other designers/builders to see how the Miners did it. The mohawk-sporting dudes from University of Oklahoma were stunned to find out S&T's carbon-fiber fairing was laid up by hand, and not in a huge auto-clave. Kudos, guys!

The Miners rallied from difficult sprint conditions and awkward timing issues to charge into 2nd place in the final standings.

In a race filled with lots of crashes (is that a familiar theme or what?) S&T was charging at race leader and powerhouse UC-Chico. Ben Kettler was making up 20 seconds on each 2.5 km lap, and freshman Evan Kluesner even made up 40 seconds on race-leader Chico, causing their strategist to get very, very nervous, and the Miners were on track (on, track, get it?) to sweep S&T into first place in the 65km showdown.

S&T's time keepers then had their turn to get nervous as on the final two laps Ben was suddenly well behind his previously blistering pace. Turns out he was riding the last 3 miles on a flat front tire! That stroke of misfortune cost the Miners the critical endurance race and the last chance to take first place. Ben had to choose between a pit-stop tire change or to aggressively soldier on, as either choice would have been equally tough. Regardless, we think he made the right choice.

Loyal readers of this blog, all three of you, probably remember the cold, damp, and windy conditions that thwarted SteaMiner's assault on the collegiate land speed record last fall. Mike Janaske of national champion Human Powered Vehicle Team tells us that Day 1 of the ASME/HPVC races experienced many of the same challenges. Could it be the state that is (supposedly) home to Area 51?

Anyway, high winds apparently played havoc with the electronic timing gates so race officials switched to the old reliable (?) back-up system. Anyone older than about three years old KNOWS that when you introduce change, arguments about fairness and interpretation are sure to break out. Run-up distances were changed, apparently in mid-event, and some teams were granted longer distances in which to gain speed before entering the critical time trap. Despite all the controversy and high winds Whittney took 3rd place in female sprint (36mph+) while Ben hung on to take 4th (38mph) in the male dash.
In the midst of all this controversy they somehow managed to run the utility bike (trike?) race but apparently when you crash across a speed bump at high speed (see the rear wheel off the ground) you bend the transmission mounts. That resulted in thrown, and ultimately broken, chains so the team had to withdraw from that event and end their plans to run the machine in the endurance race.

Stay tuned. We'll have more info later today on the all-important sprint races.