Saturday May 19 was an exciting day - it was the culmination of the three quarter Senior Design project - ten teams racing their radio-controlled dragsters in pairs down the 100 meter path from Stocker Center to Richland Avenue. These were not regular dragsters - these were externally fired heat engine driven machines in which the entire system including the heat engine was designed and built from scratch by the teams.
There was a significant amount of variation and innovation in the designs - five double-acting steam engines with spool valves, one opposed-piston wobbler steam engine, two impulse steam turbines, one gamma type Stirling engine and one Alpha type Stirling engine. Transmission mechanisms ranged from direct drive on the wheels to an air propellor drive, and one drive even included a measured fishing line giving an progressively increasing gear ratio The systems had to be completely self contained, including the water and fuel needed for the entire trip. Furthermore the dragsters needed to be remotely operated after a warmup period, including start, steering, braking and fuel shutoff.
The steam engines overwhelmingly carried the day, taking the first three places with their inevitable spectacular puffs of steam. First place went to Team "If it runs it will be a miracle" Miracle. Proudly posing with their vehicle (clockwise) are Chad Sypolt, Adam Landis, Paul Hamrick, Robert Langford and Tim Henning. Team Double-Down had the fastest and most professionally designed vehicle by far, and during time trials they managed to cover the course within 26 seconds. Unfortunately they came in second place because of a mishap in the remote control mechanism which caused them to run off the course towards the end. Team Dynama-RAMM came in third place, and team Firestone with the wobbler steam engine came in fourth.
In the team lineup picture notice that the four steam engines taking the first four places are shown on the extreme left, and the three Stirling engine entries are shown on the extreme right.
