UC San Diego Engineering Students READY TO Break Top Speed Record in Human Powered Submarine Contest
For almost a year, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering students have been putting their top-notch education to good use. In September 1999 the team of about 20 members began designing a human powered submarine with one goal in mind: shattering the Human Powered Vehicle Association's world speed record for non-propeller human powered submarines. Nearly a year later, they will get their chance July 21 to July 23 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Offshore Model Basin (http://www.modelbasin.com) in Escondido, California. For directions, please call 760-737-8850.
The Jacobs School team will attempt to break the non-propeller record. Teams from UC Santa Barbara, University of Michigan, Virginia Tech, University of Washington, Millersville University of Pennsylvania, L'Ecole Polytechnique Superiere (Quebec, Canada), University of British Columbia (Canada), and San Jose State University will also be competing.
Each team designed and built its own submarine. UC San Diego team captain, Scott Ketcham, says the San Diego sub, christened "SubSonic," was modeled after a dolphin fish. "The submarine swims much like a dolphin. It has a horizontal tail fin that moves up and down for its propulsion. The submarine also does not use any external control fins for steering. Directional control of the submarine is done by the use of vectored thrust and dynamic ballast tanks. This reduces drag to achieve higher speed," explains Ketcham. "During testing, all these systems have proven to work well and have already unofficially propelled the submarine beyond IHPVA and World Record speed for both the one person and two person non-prop submarines." The UC San Diego submarine also includes a software program to control the depth of the sub.
Media Contact: Troy Anderson, 858-822-3075 or tdanderson@ucsd.edu
Editor's Note: More information available at www-acs.ucsd.edu/~asme/sub/index.html and members.tripod.com/ASME_SD/Contest/contest.htm