Challenge + Motivation = Win for Sussex Tech Teens

High School Students Outshine Collegiate Engineering Students
in International Submarine Competition

If you were part of a group that designed and built a human-powered submarine from scratch, then raced it in a cold underwater course, you would probably expect to be a heavily funded researcher from a large corporation, right? Or at the very least, you’d expect to be a top student at an expensive and prestigious engineering university. Teenagers certainly couldn’t do such a thing … or could they?

If you were one of the extraordinary engineering high school students at Sussex County Technical School in Sparta, New Jersey, you not only could design and build such a submarine, you would. The Sussex Tech students may be under the age of 18, but because of their interest in engineering, they choose to attend the school. This means that they commit to the longest school day in the county and, in some cases, one of the longest bus rides in the county. They devote extra hours, sweat, and brain power to designing and building their submarine.

But that’s not all! Then, they race it in a 22-feet deep, 100-meter long underwater course in the biannual International Submarine Race held in Maryland. Imagine yourself in their shoes for a moment. (Please note: Click on images for a larger view.)

The entire inside of your sub is “wet” – flooded with ambient 50-60 degree water. The lighting is low, and you must wear a full wet suit and breathe with scuba gear. You have only had the opportunity to test your sub in a swimming pool – nothing like the course that you’ll face the day of the race. Would you be up to the challenge?

Remarkably, this is exactly what Sussex Tech’s teens have done – more than once. In fact, not only have three separate teams designed and built submarines in the last six years and raced them in the International Submarine Race against college teams from all over the world, but they have won numerous awards in the process, leaving many of these college teams in the dust.

Led by teacher and project manager, Chris Land, the sophomore, junior, and senior students have competed in the last three International Submarine Races in 2003, 2005, and 2007. Very few high schools compete in the race against the stiff competition, which mostly consists of college-level engineering programs. And no high school team has won the race. But then, Sussex Tech’s students aren’t ordinary high school kids. They clearly have the desire, drive, and motivation to accomplish the task.

In fact, it was the students who first approached Land with the idea after they had read about the submarine race on the Internet. Despite the fact that Land trained as a nuclear engineer in the U.S. Navy and spent five years on a submarine, he wasn’t immediately gung ho about the project. His first thought? “You’re crazy!” Then, he found out that the race is held in a controlled environment and that only one high school at that point had ever competed. After learning of this, even Land couldn’t resist taking on the gargantuan task. The challenge was just too tempting, even though he still wasn’t entirely convinced they could do it.

“I said there’s no way that we’re going to design and build this in one year,” he says. “If they wanted to do this, they would have to elect to [only] design it for the year because it’s so complex.” The school’s first team consisted solely of seniors, and they had to be willing to design the sub without seeing it come to fruition. Their final presentation was to hand the design over to the next year’s class with no opportunity to be involved in the actual building or racing of the sub. Their satisfaction had to come from the process – not the glory. Nevertheless, a number of the design elements handed over by the seniors remained intact in the final design, which is pretty amazing, considering that these students had never designed a submarine before. Even more amazing, the students in subsequent years have managed to complete both the design and building of their subs in a single year. Land now insists that they not work on a submarine during the year that the race is not held. “I can’t take it,” he says. “I would implode.”

Because of the amount of commitment required for the project, Land always wants the students to be absolutely sure before they agree to do it. “I make them take about 3-4 weeks to convince me that we want to do it again because it’s not the kind of thing that I can drag them through,” he says. But after seeing the results of the first team, Land’s students have jumped at the opportunity to take on the project, despite what they may have to give up in the process. In addition to all of their other challenges, the students must receive full SCUBA certification just to participate.

One of this year’s submarine pilots was Chelsea Shupe, a sophomore girl who gave up her school softball career in order to obtain her SCUBA certification, become a part of the design team, and compete in the race.

The Birth of UmptySquatch

Sussex Tech first entered the International Submarine Race with UmptySquatch 1.0 in 2003, followed by UmptySquatch 2.0 in 2005, and, most recently, UmptySquatch 3.2 in 2007. Why 3.2? “The kids thought it sounded cooler,” says Land. And why UmptySquatch? Land had used the term in class quite a bit as a euphemism for “thingamajig.” He had heard it in the Navy but wasn’t happy that the students wanted to lend the name to their submarine. “Over my dead body are we calling it UmptySquatch,” he told them. But one of the students responded, “If we don’t call it UmptySquatch, we’re not racing it.” So, that was that, and the name caught on. The impressive school project has received quite a bit of newspaper coverage, and reporters love the name.

When it came time for their first race, a couple of snow days during the year meant that the team was two days late, but because they had gotten so much press, they were treated like celebrities when they arrived. Everyone had heard about the high schoolers who had created UmptySquatch 1.0. Even more astonishing is that the team and their sub finished third for speed in the race, and they won the Best Design Report Award with their very first submarine.

Each year, the students learn from the designs of their predecessors. UmptySquatch 2.0 was “ten times as complicated and ten times as impressive” as 1.0, says Land, exemplified by the fact that it was awarded Best Use of Composite Materials at the race.

After building something as complex as a sub, juniors are ready to work on their own senior project the following year without Land’s help. One student, Terry O’Connor, who had worked on UmptySquatch 2.0, designed a new propeller for UmptySquatch 3.2 as his senior project during the year that the race was not held. This included a year’s worth of fluid flow and thrust analysis, which involved learning an entirely new software program. Terry concluded that the shape used in the school’s first two subs would only be desirable in a situation where power output isn’t a problem. So, after a year of painstaking study, he designed a new propeller based on the fact that the available power is entirely dependent upon the output of the student who peddles the sub.

Not only was UmptySquatch 3.2 given an entirely new hull shape designed from scratch, but the students invented a novel propulsion system unlike anything anyone had ever conceived. Most of the submarine designs in the race use a bicycle pedal or rotary system that only utilizes the pilot’s leg power. The Sussex Tech students studied exercise equipment that works out the entire body and designed a propulsion system that would use both the arms and the legs of the driver to increase horsepower. As a result, they were awarded First Place for Innovation at the 2007 race. “This was a big deal that we won this award,” says Land. “The reason we were awarded that was we were the first team ever to try to incorporate both the upper body strength and lower body strength of a single person.”

The sub had sonar-based automatic and manual navigation modes; necessary because testing the sub prior to the race was problematic. The only way to know if the sonar would work in the 22-feet deep, 100-meter course was to test it in the school’s swimming pool. Waterproof switches provided by Control Products, Inc. of East Hanover, New Jersey provided the manual control. There were two switches for the rudder – left and right – and two switches for the stern planes up and down, which were mounted on the handles that the pilots used to power the sub. If the switches didn’t work easily and reliably while the handles were constantly pushed back and forth during the race, the submarine simply wouldn’t have worked.

The switches also had to be able to withstand the completely submerged conditions within the sub. Since the pilots never shifted to automatic mode during the race, the switches were the only way the sub could be steered. “Not only were [the switches] totally immersed,” Land says, “but they had fluid flow over them constantly, and they were getting jerked back and forth. And we didn’t have any problems.”

Like many sponsors that the school managed to enlist for parts, CPI donated the switches in support of the students’ efforts. The total cost of building UmptySquatch 3.2 would have been in excess of $62,000 if the school had been forced to foot the bill itself. As a result of corporate sponsors like CPI, the final cost to the school was just over $3,000.

“The International Submarine Race is a fantastic event that motivates young people to explore engineering,” Mac Stuhler, CPI’s Vice President, says. “Being able to take part in something that helps to develop the engineers of the future means a great deal to us.”

And this project definitely encourages the students to enter the engineering field. Almost every senior who has been a part of the Sussex Tech submarine teams has gone on to study collegiate engineering. To teacher/project manager Chris Land’s knowledge, all of them remain dedicated to completing their education and becoming professional engineers.

As a result of working on the submarine project, the Sussex Tech students are better prepared for the more complex college engineering projects than most beginning collegiate engineering students. “They can read something pretty highly technical and figure it out,” Land says. “There’s so much more knowledge out there to get, but they have an understanding of how to get it and how to process it.”

The International Submarine Race itself is set up to give the students a real world experience. The only rule in the competition is to be safe, but it is still a very dangerous race. Since many of the components are provided by sponsors, some of the teams will have decided advantages over others – just like the professional engineering field. Land believes this really prepares the students for the world of competition. But he has no desire to move on to teaching at the college level. “I want to be teaching kids at this level,” he says, “to make them the perfect student for the college professor because all those professors say [beginning college students] don’t know the basics.”

There is no doubt that the Sussex Tech students are learning more than the basics and are motivated to apply that knowledge to the submarine project. “I have gotten the kids to accept the fact that the cooler stuff we want to do, the more you have to understand all the physics behind it,” Land says. “They want to know, and we want to apply it to real things. So, those kids are studying physics at a level they’re not getting at any other school…. They’re taking notes and paying attention like very good college engineering students.” The program at Sussex Tech is so impressive, in fact, that the students are often disappointed when they visit college engineering facilities.

Unfortunately, just like the engineering industry, there are fewer girls at Sussex Tech than boys, but the student body is close to 20% female. Land says he averages two girls in his engineering class each year. And this year was the first time that one of the pilots was female. The other pilots were Alex Pollara and Tim Brath. The students who worked on the project were divided into groups that worked on various components of the sub. (See Sidebar).

Because of the press the Sussex Tech submarines have received, the project has helped to attract new students to the school. They now have full enrollment and don’t have to do any aggressive recruiting.

Control Products congratulates these exciting teens!

The Students Reflect on their Experience
as Part of the UmptySquatch Team

Tim Brath Pilot, Linear Drive System, Hatches		“As a member of the U3.2 team and pilot, I’m proud to have worked on this project. At the beginning of the year we had to decide what we were going to do; either enter the ISR and build the submarine or break up and pursue individual senior projects. From the start I was all for this project. When we finally decided, unanimously, to enter the ISR, I was excited we dove right in. Looking back there was more involved in this project than there has been in anything I’ve ever done before. Maybe I’m a bit too optimistic but never have I regretted our decision. There have been times where there seemed like all we could do was get wrong answers to impossible questions, but no matter how hot, tired, frustrated, and covered in foam I was I never thought we wouldn’t finish, of course we’d finish, we’re Sussex Tech. I’ve learned a lot not just about fluid dynamics and submarine design but about big projects, team work, and perseverance. I would do this project again in a heartbeat.”

Frank Porter Propulsion Team – Transmission		“After taking a step back and looking at this project as a whole I must say that this has been one of the most rigorous experiences that I have been through both physically and mentally. After participating in the sub races I know now that this is why there is not that many teams that do this, because of both the stress and the effort it takes to do this. But I know that once I see the sub in the water working and the gears going I will be so relieved. Also I have learned the value of having the team there when ever you needed them for something.”

Dane Lindholm Propulsion Team – Transmission		“My first views about this project was it’s a great opportunity but I don’t know if I can do it, this project being the first real group responsibility that I’ve had to be a part of. But, I decided it would be worth it, not just as an educational experience but as a real group project that if completed will be worth the time and hard work. I have learned about things that I’ve had almost no idea about and completed it, like the gears and the gearbox. This has been a great experience for me, being part of a group who actually wants to and does complete important projects. This is a great experience for anyone who has the patience to see it through to the end and not really care if you win or not.”

Adam Schatteman Propeller Design, Fluid Flow Analysis, Hull Fabrication		“Spending three years in the Engineering Technology Shop in Sussex County Technical School has shown me what it will take to study in the professional engineering field. Projects that have been given to me these past years have taught me the importance of brainstorming, teamwork, and determination. The 9th ISR is a project that has greatly reinforced each of these aspects. For myself, teamwork was expressed through our joint efforts to design the propeller. Our brainstorming utilized to find the most efficient profiles in the finite element analysis of the hull and the propeller. Determination was most needed to succeed in fabricating our optimal hydrodynamic hull. I know now, not when I started, but now, that this is the most preparation for the future in my pursuit of my engineering degree.”

Michael Castaneda Linear Drive System Design & Manufacturing, Hull Fabrication		“Working on the U 3.2 was truly different from the past projects I have worked on. My previous projects were never this in-depth with the design and manufacturing portion; then again I never worked on a project like this. Working outside the class as well as inside proved to be a most difficult challenge. The work that I needed to perform for this project along, with keeping up with my daily homework proved to be the most difficult challenge of all. The 9th International Submarine Race proved to be an effort that will not only help me but it encouraged me to do more then expected in any other of the projects. For me to say I worked on building a human-powered submarine not only impresses people, it makes me feel that during my high school career I did something other than just study.”

Alex Pollara Propulsion, Hull, Safety, Pilot		“I feel safe in saying that the UmptySquatch 3.2 has been the single most complicated, and all involving project of my life. To this date competing in the 9th I.S.R. has also proven itself to be one of the most rewarding events I have ever participated in. In the past months I have learned to fiberglass, become SCUBA certified, and spent hours devoting my brain to the resolution of some of the various problems with which the U3.2 team has been forced to contend with. The submarine race has been comparable to one all-consuming quest for the perfection of our design goals. This is certain to become a project of which I am glad to see the finish of, not because the path was too hard, but simply because the goal has been from the beginning to finish with all possible honors, and this is what we have accomplished. I am proud of what we have accomplished and that was worth every headache, long night, and missed meal.”

Brian Coolack Propulsion Team		“My thoughts on this project are that it is a really good project and I have gotten a lot out of it. I have learned how to follow a project all the way through and not get bored of it. I have worked very hard on this project doing analysis on the sub’s hydrodynamics and working on the machining of the gearbox. I have helped with the construction of the submarine hull. I think that other people could get a lot out of it like I have. For one thing I think that if someone did this project that they would have some respect for how hard engineering really is. They would learn how to follow through with a project and not sit around and let everyone else work. They would also get experience with how to design with a purpose and not just throw things around, hoping that they will work. This project has been very hard and a real pain sometimes but it will be worth it in the end. If we put this in our resumes we will get into a good college for sure. How many people can actually say that they designed and built a submarine from scratch with a bunch of other high school students against colleges from around the country?”

Daniel Nuzzetti Steering and Diving

“The ISR is a competition against oneself. It is a competition against everything you thought you could never accomplish and against everything you thought you could. It is a competition that represents the most daring and, to be honest, crazy people in the world. The winners of such a competition are not the teams that finish first, or even the fastest, but instead the winners of this competition are the ones who walk away with a greater understanding of what being part of a team bigger than any single person is all about. The winners of this competition don’t necessarily walk away with a medal, they walk away with the ability to take on the world and conquer everything and anything that lies in their paths!”

Click here for the Final Design Report for the UmptySquatch 3.2 (PDF)