Students test drive career paths at the track
May 3—LOUDON — Nearly 500 pounds of car fueled by battery accelerated along the front straightaway at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Then came a gasp from the crowd of middle-school to college-age students.
The high-performance race car, built by engineering students from the University of Toronto, smacked into the white concrete wall on Wednesday, crumpling the car's metal front but leaving the college-age driver unhurt.
"Out of nowhere, he spun out right into the wall," said Vermont high school student Cameron Page, at the track on a school field trip.
Learning from failure was one of the lessons participants took away from this past week's 18th annual Formula Hybrid + Electric competition, which drew more than 500 college students from 16 states and four Canadian provinces.
About 300 middle and high school students, including Page, came to learn about engines and forces and race cars, a potential pool of future workers.
"It puts in my head something I'd like to do," Page said on the drizzly morning with temperatures in the 40s. "It seems interesting."
The annual competition was a way for younger students to test-drive their interest in potential career paths.
"This definitely makes me curious in what I can push to do after high school," said Cameron Sapiel, a junior at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center in Newport.
Nearly a dozen high school students from the Newport area walked the garage stalls learning, for example, that a Pennsylvania college team's car uses the same batteries as a Tesla.
"It's interesting to see what comes after the design process, knowing what's next," said Sapiel, 16.
Graham Scott, an engineering teacher at the Newport tech school, said some students were in their last year in high school. They were there, he said, "Just to learn more on what college students can work on."
Competition electric
A record 32 college teams designed and built earth-friendly, hybrid and electric high-performance race cars over the past 10 months for the competition, founded and hosted by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth.
Many of the college students were close in age to the youngest drivers participating in last year's big NASCAR race at NHMS.
Dartmouth fielded the only Granite State team.
Dartmouth senior Joe McInnis, who lives on Long Island in New York, answered questions from the pre-college crowd throughout the day. He hoped it would encourage students to pursue a job in an engineering field.
"I had no idea I wanted to be an engineer in high school," said McInnis.
Being on the 16-member racing team is "like a high school robotics team, just on a larger scale," McInnis said.
It also requires a slightly bigger budget. The team's $15,500 outlay this year doesn't include about $90,000 in car parts, making it a six-figure project over time.
Cars must pass several inspections, including for brakes, electrical systems and mechanical technical checks.
A crowd favorite was the tilt test, where each car was angled 45 degrees to the side to detect any fluid leaks and also tilted 60 degrees to test the car's stability, according to official Roger Dauphinais of Grafton.
Last year, Dartmouth's team couldn't fix all its setbacks during the inspections and failed to get its car on the track.
This year's model weighed 679 pounds, measured 60 inches wheel to wheel and topped out at 80 mph.
"Passing inspection gives us a chance to be competitive," McInnis said.
Jack Horowitz, a student from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, said the competition's benefits extend beyond winning or losing.
"You learn a lot of life and industry skills," Horowitz told the Newport students.
Young, open-minded
About 85 sixth graders from Rundlett Middle School in Concord moved from one race team to another.
Amariah Tripulca, who carried a notebook to capture the highlights, prefers to leave the classroom to learn.
"I like field trips more because you actually see it with your own eyes," Tripulca said.
Not everything on the internet is accurate, she said.
Classmate Aileene Avenant, who was leaning more toward biology than engineering, also favored learning on the road.
"Definitely field trips like this," she said. "You get to talk one-on-one with the experts in the field."
Rundlett science teacher Brian Huckins said many of his students are interested in science.
"This is a great way to see what this looks like in real life," Huckins said.
Dartmouth sophomore Jeff Kobal, 20, said the competition supplemented his classroom education.
"You learn how to weld. What class teaches you to weld?" said Kobal, who hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. "It's easily the best way on campus to get hands-on experience."
And yes, Dartmouth's car No. 210 later passed its inspections and raced on the track.
"We may not have the fastest times, but it's still honestly invigorating to watch," Kobal texted later.
