“Sum of the Forces” sets a new record time

This year we had a great turn out with four colleges from Western Washington and three colleges from Eastern Washington sending teams. All together there were thirteen teams competing for this year's honors. This turned out to be one of the most competitive events ever with two teams running very fast vehicles and four teams building some of the most innovative designs we have ever seen. The solid bicycle built by team "Sum of the Forces", from Tacoma Community College, set a new official course record of 1:55.

After all the races were over, both the first and second place teams in vehicle performance asked to make un-official runs just to see how fast they could go if they really went for it. Both teams said that during the actual races they had been holding back because they were concerned about having their vehicles break down before the finish line. Everyone agreed that these runs would not affect official standings and so we ran two more races. The second place team "Road Kill" asked to go first and they zipped around the track finishing with an new "un-official" time of 1:48. Not to be out done, team "Sum of the Forces" practically flew around the track and finished with an amazing "un-official" time of 1:27.

Team “Taco Express's” Prop driven vehicle

The award for Most Innovative Design was probably harder to choose this year then in any past competition. Team "Sum of the Forces" built a vehicle that was not only fast, but incorporated some great design concepts, team "Paper Pinto" constructed a huge four wheeled pedal car that was very complex, team "Big Wheel" built the first successful squirrel cage design and team "Taco Express", this year's winner, entered the first ever prop driven vehicle. In the end a vote off had to be held among the judges to pick the winner and it was still a close call..

We also had some great volunteer judges for this year's competition. The professional chapters of both the SME and the ASME sent representatives to help out. They did a great job and had fun. We hope to see them all back next year.

I would like to thank all the students and faculty who made this year's competition such a great one. I also want to mention all the schools that sent teams:
Eastern Washington University, Everett Comminity College, Green River Community College, Spokane Community College, Tacoma Community College, Edmonds Community College and Spokane Falls Community College.

Our judges from the SME and ASME From L-R: Valerie Uskoski, Matt Feider, Doug Ward, Linda Nowak

Here are the instructors that helped make this competition possible

If you are a student or faculty member and are looking into this competition for the first time, I hope you will consider joining us in the year 2004. For those of you who participated in our competition, I look forward to seeing you and your new designs.

Once again, thanks to all.
Sincerely
Keith Turpin