By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

Parents and family members got the chance to feel the pull of a corner and the grip of track during the Hays High electric car program open house last week.

The annual open house lets the students show off the cars to their loved ones and current and potential sponsors.

Last year, one of the Hays High Industrial Technology Association’s cars won the state championship, but with each year comes a new car and new challenges.

Quentin Rupp is a senior on the team and vice president of HHITA this year. He said the team’s state-winning car last year reached speeds of between 20 and 25 mph. This is in a vehicle that weighs less than 100 pounds. Drivers can weigh no more than 190 pounds. Weights are added during competition if drivers weigh less than 180 pounds.

The upper classmen get the first shot at racing. Students have to be at least 16 to race the cars.  The students compete for most laps in an hour; ties are broken with the fastest lap.

The team’s most common challenges are flat tires or a chain popping off in the middle of the race, Rupp said.

The cars each have three tires, two batteries, a chain and motor. Each car is fabricated from scratch each year.

“We are always working on them, always improving them,” he said. “We try to build a new one every year to improve our ability, and then we get rid of the older ones, so we can keep getting better and better as we go on.”

The students weld their own frames. Leon’s Welding bends some of the metal for the students, but the rest of the metal work is done by students.

“I like working hands-on and welding,” said Rupp, who has been on the team since his freshman year, “so I have worked on fabricating a lot of these cars, and I just enjoy racing.”

He added, “It’s the speed and adrenaline that gets me going. It’s just fun to drive.”

Rupp said the team of about 30 students has had to up its game in the last couple of years as the competition has been getting tougher.

“Last year, we had to make some improvements to the car,” he said. “When they work and you win, it’s really fun.”

Rupp plans to take technical training to the next level after graduation by attending Dodge City Community College or NCK-Tech and pursuing a degree in welding. His dream is to own his own fabricating business.

Chris Dinkel, career technical education teacher, said the open house puts the students in the limelight.

He said the students can learn a variety of skills in the program that can be applied to careers after graduation. They learn design processes, materials and processes through construction, as well as electrical and mechanical skills.

“There are a lot of different technologies that can stir the students’ interests,” he said. “We try to use as many of those type of applications.

“[We] get the kids thinking about problem solving — how the car performs and about changing and manipulating that system in order to get it to preform at higher efficiency.”

Students who have aspirations to be in the industrial fields, such as welding and fabrication, work side by side in this program with students who want to go on to college to be mechanical or electrical engineers.

“There is nothing more inclusive than an electric car program where they can do the design process and complete the project, engineer it for a specific application and move into where their interests are,” Dinkel said.

Like other extracurricular activities, Dinkel said the electric car team builds character.

“We try to build the type of student and the type of person we want to see in society,” he said. “We do that by trying to put them around people that can [be] models …”

The program sprung from grants from the Green Energies Act in 1995. Although federal money has gone away, HHS has been able to sustain the program through local donations and sponsorships.

“This was just too good of stuff for kids not to be exposed to,” Dinkel said.

The program is in need of sponsors for this year. If you would like to be an electrical car sponsor, you can contact any of the students in HHITA, Dinkel or an administrator at HHS at 785-623-2600.