Harlingen students build electric cars for competition

HARLINGEN — First they shot for the moon.

Then it was 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Now, they are headed to the “brickyard,” right in their own backyard at the Brownsville airport.

“It’s very exciting because I have never driven a car like this,” said Daniella Monroy, 16, a junior in the Harlingen High School Engineering and Technology Club.

She was sitting in a battery-powered electric car she and her fellow club members have been assembling.

She was one of three students selected to drive the vehicle this coming April in the GreenPower USA Battery-Powered Car Race at the Brownsville South Padre Island Airport.

They’ll spend many long hours preparing the car so they can drive it on a track for 90 minutes.

Curiously, the basic car came in a kit which they assembled, but that was only the beginning of things.

“We have our kit put together and we’re looking at modifications,” said Paul Tenison, team coach and engineering teacher.

He said the challenge will be to create modifications that will reduce friction and drag to improve fuel efficiency. Fuel, in this case, is battery power. Therefore, the ultimate challenge for the vehicles and their drivers will be to travel the farthest distance in 90 minutes.

Harlingen High School South engineering students are building their own car, said Samuel Castillo, 16, a junior.

“I’ve been going after school and working on it and putting together the steering,” said Castillo, who paused before adding more eagerly, “I actually call it rack and pinion. The steering system.”

Castillo, who has been in the engineering program since his freshman year, quickly explained why his enthusiasm had spiked talking about the project.

“I’ve always been interested in working on cars like that, endurance type racing and being able to put the car together and get it the way you want it to be,” he said. “It’s a lot more mechanical than before. I like it a lot better being able to work on something mechanical rather than the robotics. It interests me more.”

The engineering clubs at high schools in the Harlingen school district have been heavily involved in FIRST Robotics, SeaPerch and Team America Rocketry Challenge. This new challenge with the battery-powered car offers a whole new experience in STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

Dulio Garza, who teaches Advanced Placement Physics and Astronomy at Harlingen South, said students in the engineering club built the basic car according to specific instructions. But that’s only the beginning.

“The body of the car itself needs to be designed and built by the students,” Garza said. “The creativity and the imagination of the kids really come into play when you’re redesigning the body itself to make it more aerodynamic.”

Back at HHS, Coltin Lopez had discovered a problem with the two front wheels.

“They are five millimeters off,” he said, holding a ruler to the front and then to the back. Measurements showed they were slightly angled, which would cause unnecessary friction.

“It will slow it down,” said Mia Lopez, 17, a junior and another driver.

All three of them went to work on the stabilizer and idler bars, tightening things down until they’d corrected the alignment.

Coltin had already put in a great deal of work on the car, installing the fuse box, motor relay, batteries and wiring — and there would still be much more to do the next few months for him and the other students.

“I am enjoying being part of this,” Mia said. “This is the first year to do it.”

Young mechanics students also are enjoying the project.

“We set up the brakes system, which was a big mechanical deal with the car,” said Eulalio Sanchez, a senior at Harlingen High School.

“There were upper and lower A frames,” said Eulalio, 18. “That’s what keeps your whole spindle in place and that spindle pretty much holds the axle for the tires.”

Since this car resembles a bicycle in many respects, there were obviously some key differences for which he had to adjust and improvise.

“The adjustment settings and fittings were a lot different considering they were metric and a lot of the stuff I’ve worked with customarily are on a much larger scale,” he said. “It wasn’t as simple but yet it was still complex in its own aspect. We met that challenge.”