Mechanical problems and last minute emergencies shattered any hopes that SF State's Human Powered Vehicle team would place in the top three in the American Society of Mechanical Engineer's Human Powered Vehicle Championships last weekend in San Diego.
According to Emile Lemoine, although team spirit ran high, the bike's performance and durability did not.
"In the sprints, the fairing became disabled and the rider crashed," Lemoine said. "Fortunately, with the help of George Weinholtz, our faculty representative, the bike was repaired and we finished the sprints in sixth place, and were able to compete in the road race."
The team didn't fair as well in the other aspects of the competition, according to Lemoine. In the design concept, SF State placed 21 out of 31 and came in 15th in the road race.
"The design won first place in last year's event, so this year's team logically thought it would do just as well if the problems that confronted last year's model were just modified and improved upon," Lemoine said. "But the judges apparently like to see something creative or new each year."
According to Lemoine, during the road race the handlebar broke off, adding more stress to the already frazzled team. The handlebar was repaired and the race finished, but the bike had only reached a maximum speed of 39 mph and not the 46 mph that had been the team's goal.
Alex Ramos, the project manager for the HPV team, said that the University of Hawaii dominated the competition, Portland State came in second and Chico State placed third overall.
"Hawaii had been in hiatus for eight years, so they had a lot of time to work on this," Ramos said.
According to Lemoine, a few positive aspects did emerge out of all the bleakness for the HPV team.
"We have made a name for SF State's School of Engineering in the past two years," Lemoine said. "We were unknowns before last year, but this year, we basically represented the Bay Area because Berkeley didn't even show up. We also did better than UCLA and Cal Poly overall."
He also said that the size of the team is a factor in the success of the HPV competition.
"It takes a lot of work from beginning to end in building the bike and competing. We had only four guys on the team and most of the other schools had six or eight. We did learn a lot down there and had fun doing it, and next year we will have a bigger, better team."