KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / THURSDAY. MAY 6. 2010 / NEWS
3A
Jerry Wann/KANSAN
Ashton Bitner, a senior from Wichita, receives instruction from Robert Sorem, associate dean of the School of Engineering and adviser of the Jayhawk Motorsports team, on relocating a swirl pot. Sorem received the Mentor Cup in 2009 for his contributions to the program since 2000. Jerry Wang KA
CAR (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
productive week you've ever seen."
Faisal Al-Madint, a senior from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said he'd been in the shop about 10 or 12 hours every day last week. Saturday, however, was a different story. Al-Madini arrived at the shop at 7:30 that morning, but he was still there at 4:30 a.m. Sunday — clocking 21 hours of work on the project.
After sleepless nights and overnight stays in the shop, Al-Madini said he was excited about finishing the car.
"When you build something from scratch and see it all put together, it's awesome," Al-Madini said.
Anna Langley, a senior from Overland Park, isn't working on the car, but said she spent a lot of time in the shop anyway — it was the only way she got to see her boyfriend, Stephen Hinton. At 3:30 am, Sunday, Langley was still waiting around to see if the car would be ready to run in the next couple of hours.
"I want to see the thing run," she said. "It's been the other woman in his life for the last year"
Langley said she and Hinton had a habit of texting each other before going to bed. One morning she woke up and didn't have a text from him. She was angry until she figured out the reason.
"I realized he never went to bed." Langley said.
Behind a whiteboard covered with task lists for each of the three sub-teams, there's an armchair where someone occasionally takes a five-minute nap before rejoining the group. Up to a dozen team members surround the car at any time, each with his own job to do. Although they're tired, they know what they're doing, and they don't get in each other's way.
Al-Madini said it got crowded with so many people working on
the car simultaneously, but having such a large team working together was a good thing.
"If you screw up, someone can fix it," he said.
At least a dozen people stayed all night Saturday and into Sunday morning. Despite their efforts, the team members decided at 4:30 a.m. that they wouldn't be able to take the car for a test drive that morning. They had to get the car ready for its unveiling that afternoon at Abe and Jake's.
RACING THE CAR
The formula car has dominated these students' lives for a year. Now they hope it will dominate the competition.
Hinton, a senior from Overland Park, said the team members sacrificed a lot to spend this much time working on the for-
working on the formula car.
"Girlfriends, friends, family — everything takes a hit," he said. "You have to try to keep it all together."
He said the most dedicated people on the team tried to spend as much time as possible in the shop because they
wanted to make sure everything on the car was done right. He said building the car was an opportunity to use everything they learned in mechanical engineering classes and gave them an opportunity to see what their careers would be like.
After the car's first test drive early Tuesday morning, the team spent the rest of the day tuning it up for its next test. Hinton said because it was built for racing, the car didn't have many parts that could break without causing a big problem.
"We want any problems we're going to have to surface now," he said. "What you do can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death maybe."
The team will spend the rest of this week taking the car through its paces in preparation for the competition, where the car will undergo static tests analyzing its cost and design, as well as dynamic tests of the car's drag racing and autocross capabilities.
The car runs on E85, which gives it an upper hand as a race car. Because the students built the engine, they can tune it to lower the fuel conversion ratio so the car goes faster. The car's gas tank holds about two gallons, so it can run for about 30 minutes of hard racing before it has to be filled up again.
STEPHEN HINTON Overland Park senior
"What you do can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death maybe."
Tim McClintock, a senior from
Council Grove, said the car's engine required lots of tune-ups and would need to be rebuilt every 5,000 miles. Before it was put into the car, he said, it required about five hours of work for every five minutes of running it.
"When something goes wrong, it can go wrong quickly." McClintock said.
And the team doesn't want anything to go wrong in the coming days.
The students will pack their faster-than-a-Ferrari car in a trailer Monday and then head to Detroit for the competition, hoping to come back with an award for their efforts.
- Edited by Cory Bunting
CAMPUS
Jayhawker Yearbook for sale at the Union
The Jayhawker Yearbook, which covers the 2009-2010 academic year, will be available for purchase for $10 Friday in the Kansas Union. The yearbook can also be purchased online at kansaless.com.
has gone to press too late for publication. KJHK, the student-run radio station, produced the Jayhawker in the past, but it is now a University Daily Kansan product.
In recent years, the yearbook
"It's a lot of stories that you wouldn't necessarily get to read otherwise," said Brenna Hawley, editor of the Jayhawker. "It's the year in review and has pieces of KU that sometimes get missed."
Hawley, a senior from Salina.
said the book covered big events on campus, profiles on favorite professors, academics and athletics with several photos to accompany the stories. Feature stories include the Potter Lake clean-up project, unique student experiences and the football and basketball seasons.
The yearbook contains 148 pages including the cover.
TUITION (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
— Kirsten Kwon
according to a 2009-2010 academic year report by the Board of Regents. Bretz said the majority of the $2 million awarded to KU from the federal stimulus package was put toward minimizing tuition increases.
Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said she wanted students to know their concerns about tuition would not go unaddressed. She is lobbying Gov. Mark Parkinson to stop additional cuts to the state's colleges.
"We are asking legislators to consider alternative ways to save," Gray Little said.
Debate on the budget was put on hold in March. The University expects to hear the state's final budget in mid-May. University administrators will then determine appropriate tuition rates, which they will pitch to the Regents May 19 and 20. The final tuition rate for students is expected to be announced during the Regents' June session.
Edited by Kate Larrabee
KJHK (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
from a new place would take some getting used to.
"With The Shack, there's a honey feel to it, with graffiti all over the wall and having been there for 34 years." Nickels said. "It will take some transitioning, but it's leaving one home for another and making this our home."
With old age, The Shack's equipment started to break down. Kane said that certain pieces, like turntables, needed to be replaced every three weeks. The new studio will include all modern equipment and more advanced hardware and software than KJHK previously owned. Kane said he hoped the new studio would deliver improved broadcasts.
"I think it a long time overdue." Kane said. "It makes our jobs easier, and it'll make the quality of the broadcast better on air for the listeners."
Although KJHK usually broadcasts 24/7, the staff admitted there could be some lag
time because of the move that the staff aims for no longer than 30 minutes off the air. The last time KIHK couldn't produce a constant broadcast was four years ago during a microburst. The move will happen this afternoon with all necessary systems up by 1 p.m.
KJHK will use high-quality phone lines that travel from the Kansas Union to Memorial Stadium and finally to the transmitter. Nickels said that the wire transfer wouldn't be difficult.
"It's a little bit complicated but essentially, when we give the signal, they will pull out the wire from The Shack and the wire from the Union and switch them," he said.
The station will celebrate the actual move of the studios today in the Kansas Union with an open house. Friday has been officially declared KIHK Day by the city of Lawrence.
Edited by Allyson Shaw
www.livenaismith.com
785.843.8559
ork listen solve and call click come by are trademarks of Commerce Bancshares, Inc. © 2010 COMMERCE BANK SHARES, INC