No words can explain the feeling of jumping in a big pickup truck with a team of young, eager engineering students, pulling the result of a year’s worth of hard work in the trailer behind them, 14 long hours of road ahead, and a week of epic adventures awaiting. Nick Mulder, Vangie Rose, Casey Palermo, and Medo Abouzid of the UW Clean Snowmobile Team set off on Sunday March 3, for the 2013 SAE Clean Snowmobile Competition with little sleep, and the competition-ready, Arctic Cat-Ski-Doo snowmobile riding in their trailer!
Day 1 brought together students and snowmobiles from all over North America, setting up their temporary workstation in Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center. uWaterloo passed static technical inspection with flying colours and dynamic inspection after a slight oil problem. The team was set to compete in the dynamic events!
Day 2 took the team for a loop as the sled started losing power 3 miles into the race with the oil dipstick reading NO OIL. The engine wasn’t seized and no apparent broken parts, so hopes were still high! Confusion set in as hours later, with no oil added, the dipstick read FULL. More diagnostics discovered an oil pressure spike upon ignition, and all signs pointed to the worst: engine removal.
Day 3 and 4 were a blur of turning wrenches, design presentations, and trouble-shooting. The engine was torn down, diagnosed, and put back together in record time, with excess RTV engine sealant being the oil pressure problem. The sled was ready to go, and excitement was building!
Day 5 was uWaterloo’s day to shine! All 114 laps of make-up miles from the endurance race were ridden by Nick and Casey, with Vangie and Medo proudly cheering from the sidelines. uWaterloo was ready to compete. In-service emissions brought light to some issues with the injectors and cooling; both were resolved. Dyno emissions revealed that uWaterloo’s sled was pushing 113 hp, delicately close to the enforced 130 hp cap. It was powerful and running well!
The last day of competition hosted the acceleration and handling events. First-year member, Casey Palermo, took the wheel for the acceleration event and made Waterloo proud! They fell short to Platteville, but gave an awesome show. The handling event was ridden by Nick Mulder and as the events of the week ascended to a climax, uWaterloo went out with a bang as the sled caught fire! Judges came running, fire extinguishers were flying, and luckily the sled was saved. It was a dramatic ending to an eventful week.
Once again, uWaterloo stood out in the eyes of the judges for their perseverance and determination. They are a small team with a big heart, and mindset to never be defeated by setbacks. They persevered through mechanical failures, oil leaks, missed highway exits, numerous trips to Nappa and Carquest, Canadian-American rivalry, and flames of fire to bring you this story. Team member Vangie Rose says it best: “We had a running sled. We broke it. We tore it apart. We fixed it. We ran it crazy for 1.5 days, and we caught it on fire”. But in the end, the team learned that life can be full of setbacks, frustrations and surprises, but if you want the most out of the situations you’re in, you have to ‘open all the boxes’.
uWaterloo finished 9th overall and a rewarding 4th in both the Acceleration and In-Service Emissions events and placed 5th in the cost event. A very respectful showing for a young team, and they are looking forward to what they have planned in the coming years.
For the 2014 SAE Clean Snowmobile Competition they will be introducing their new platform consisting of a Polaris Rush chassis and 750 turbo engine. They are always learning from their mistakes, improving on their design, and bringing uWaterloo’s best to competition each year.
The UW Clean Snowmobile Team would like to specially thank the team’s faculty advisor, Professor Teertstra, who was there to witness the events of the week, as well as The University of Wisconsin – Platteville and Kettering University for their support each year. They would also like to thank the Dean of Engineering, MME Department, WEEF, and EngSoc for their continued sponsorship, and all sponsors for their support. Check out sled.uwaterloo.ca or facebook.com/uwsled for more info!
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