Charlie Gordon maneuvers the team’s snowmobile through the course.
From left are Spencer Johnson, Ryan Schefers, Joe Lofgren, Mark Boeckmann, Charlie Gordon, Ben Suter, Dylan Dahlheimer, Nicole Sovde, Nels Eide, Brenden Bungert, Jake Lynch, and Heather Tinus, on snowmobile.
A Falls High School graduate is among 12 University of Minnesota Duluth students celebrating their success at the 2015 Clean Snowmobile Challenge in Houghton, Mich.
For the second year in a row, they won the contest’s Innovation Award and they were recognized with the Best Manufacturability Award. They also placed fourth overall in the internal combustion division, says a news release from the school.
The Clean Snowmobile Challenge is offered by the Society of Automotive Engineers to encourage innovation in reducing snowmobile emissions and noise levels. Teams from around the world participate in a rigorous six day event hosted by Michigan Tech that includes inspections by professional engineers, a 100 mile endurance run, cold start tests, handling and acceleration courses and technical presentations.
International Falls native Charlie Gordon was one of the snowmobile drivers and said it was an amazing experience.
“It was nice to take a break from studying to hang out with the team and work on the sled,” said Gordon in the release. “Everyone on the team worked very hard to accomplish this goal and it paid off.”
Team Captain Dylan Dahlheimer explained how the Innovation Award came from their development of a chassis dynamometer testing technique.
“We set up a big water tank, about 8-feet by 3-feet, and would run the snowmobile track in it to test our modifications,” said Dahlheimer. “It was great because the force of the water is similar to the fluid load of snow so we could immediately tell how much power it was using.”
The group received a brand new snowmobile from Arctic Cat in November and promptly took it apart. The team then worked on transforming it into a quieter model with fewer emissions and greater drive line efficiency. According to Dahlheimer, the final product performed well and their design includes features already used in the automotive industry versus being completely new and unique.
“I think that’s why we won the Manufacturability Award,” said Dahlheimer. “Our machine is reliable and would be easier to reproduce than many of the other teams’ sleds.”
In addition to winning awards, the group’s snowmobile successfully completed the endurance run, cold start test and nearly took home the acceleration prize with a zero to 66 mph run in 500 feet.
UMD Associate Professor Emmanuel Enemuoh is the team’s advisor. “Taking on this challenge and just getting to the competition takes a highly driven group of students,” said Enemuoh. “And they’re not just getting hands-on engineering experience. They’re also improving their skills in teamwork, organization, fundraising and presentations.”
About 25 people were involved with the UMD Snowmobile Club. Most are students in the mechanical and industrial and electrical engineering departments of UMD’s Swenson College of Science and Engineering. They are: Mark Boeckmann, Brenden Bungert, Dylan Dahlheimer, Nels Eide, Gordon, Spencer Johnson, Joe Lofgren, Jake Lynch, Ryan Schefers, Nicole Sovde, Ben Suter, and Heather Tinus.
The Snowmobile Club is a student life organization and welcomes membership from all backgrounds. Its primary supporter is UMD’s Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department which provides meeting and lab space. The club also received major support from Arctic Cat. Other groups that donated parts or funds to help with the project include: SCSE, IonE, United Piping, Amsoil, Heraeus, Lake Superior Consulting, New Page, C3 Powersports, Team Industries, US Steel and Performance Electronics.
In 2014, SCSE enrolled 3,050 undergraduate and 220 graduate students. The College is home to ten academic departments, the Large Lakes Observatory, the UMD Air Force ROTC program, and the Iron Range Engineering program. SCSE students also benefit from hands-on research opportunities through its collaboration with multiple research institutions and area businesses. To learn more about SCSE visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/scse.
