The Swamp "Thang"

The crowd stared in amazement as it crawled out of the murky lake onto the shore. Belching smoke and making growling sounds, it rumbled towards the woods ahead. Appearing even more agile on the muddy ground then it was in the water; it trampled everything in its path. With its peculiar exoskeleton, it had no difficulty plowing through the dense vegetation. It was not alone. Dozens of the beasts were already on shore, and others soon followed. Strangely, the crowd watching this invasion showed not the slightest fear. They were actually cheering and applauding the beasts. What madness was this? Were those unearthly invaders using mind control on their hapless victims?

There was no need to call in the National Guard, for this was no invasion. The beasts were actually man-made machines called “Mini-Bajas”. A small version of a dune buggy, each Mini-Baja is built by college engineering students for their senior class project. The Society of Automotive Engineers, commonly known as SAE, sponsors the annual competition. In existence since 1976, the competition has provided not only a great way to test newly learned engineering skills, it also teaches a valuable lesson in teamwork.

In 1992, my oldest son, John, was a participant in the Mini-Baja competition that took place on May 14 through 16 in Cookeville, Tennessee. That same year, he would graduate from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a degree in mechanical engineering. He and four other seniors - Jack, Dave, Jose and Chris - would have to design and build a Mini-Baja to exacting specifications, and then see how it would perform in competition with others. From the beginning of the project, which began in the fall of 1991, there were plenty of reasons for the team to give up. They knew they could not be deterred however, because designing and building machines from the ground up was their career path of choice.

The team chose the project from a list of potential themes. Though they knew it would be a lot of work, John told me, “it sounded like the most fun.” Before they could actually begin work, they had to raise funds. Thanks to the generosity of the Faulk Brothers Hardware store in Charlotte, and BASF Corporation, they received all the necessary materials. With the help of a powerful CAD-CAM computer that utilizes 3-D imagery, they would design, build and test the machine in a virtual environment. When they were ready to begin work on the real thing, every team member participated in the development of the project.

To build a machine that must operate on both land and water takes a great deal of ingenuity and planning. Knowing that they would be competing against other engineering students, the team had to be precise and practical at once. They needed to find an edge that would help them gain the victory. Many of the schools in the contest had their entire class working on their project. In addition, many of them had as long as a year to complete it.

 “We built a car from scratch with all new ideas…with a five man team,” said John. They only had two semesters to get it done. The edge, they hoped, would be the design of the body. BASF had provided the team with uni-directional fiberglass sheets that would be formed into a “composite sandwich” encasing a foam core. That design, John told me, was unique among their peers. The general idea was to make it as light as possible, while maintaining strength. The foam core would provide the necessary floatation on water.

The team decided on an 8 horsepower lawnmower engine for propulsion. Based on their calculations, 8 hp should have been plenty for such a lightweight machine. They originally used the pull cord as the means of starting. As they would later discover, there would be times when the engine cut off and the driver would have to get out and pull the cord to start it again. The transmission came from a snowmobile, so it was ideal for a dune buggy. As for brakes, the front set came from a four wheel ATV, and the rear set from a motorcycle. They felt they had made good progress on the vehicle, and things seemed to be going well, but time was of the essence.

Spring break had arrived and time was running out. Everything but the body was complete, and they had not fully tested the vehicle. The guys knew that they would have to sacrifice their last spring break to get the job done. As they finally finished the body shaping, they figured that the aerodynamic design would increase speed. What they hadn’t counted on, was the overall vehicle weight of 135 pounds, heavier than they anticipated. Nevertheless, the vehicle was now ready for testing, and with few students on campus they had an unobstructed use of the grounds.

There is a long hill that drops off into a cloudy pond on the campus of UNCC. This would be a perfect test ground, so test they did. To make sure that the vehicle could handle whatever came its way, “We would put the car through as much as we could and then see if anything would break”, John said.  One of the ways they tested it was to run it full throttle down the hill, and into the lake. Naturally, this was when the engine chose to stall. Standing in two feet of thick muck trying to start the engine was no fun.  That was when they realized some type of internal ignition system was needed Once that was accomplished, and they were satisfied with the testing, they could relax, but not for long.

The day of the competition was upon them. On the road to Tennessee with their creation in tow, they came up with a name. With an obvious reference to the dialect in the hills of Tennessee, their creation would henceforth be called, “The Swamp Thang.”

The Swamp Thang passed all the initial inspections for such things as design, ergonomics and safety. But it was the four hour endurance run that would tell the story of the Swamp Thang. Each of the guys took turns driving as they went through the grueling course, but that extra weight is what kept them back.  With all the safety shielding in place, enclosing the engine, the Swamp Thang finally overheated. This in turn caused the transmission to lock up. After only five laps around the course, the race was over.

Though they lost the race, coming in next to last actually, the Swamp Thang did receive some glory.  They won first place in the braking category!  An old TV commercial used to tell us, “It’s not how fast you go that counts; it’s how fast you can stop.” Perhaps this was the only contribution the Swamp Thang made, but John and his teammates knew the satisfaction of accomplishment, and perhaps they did more than they realized. To this day, the Mini-Baja competition is still an annual event. Further, UNCC now has one of the few, if not only, motor-sports engineering curricula. The engineering school at UNCC works closely with some NASCAR teams to build race cars.

The Swamp Thang was not a monster; it was a beloved teacher and a member of the family. We learn many things in life, and sometimes the best teachers are those we least expect. John and his teammates put so much of themselves into the Swamp Thang that they can’t let it go. Like a human skeleton, the shell of the Swamp Thang still resides at John’s house in Florida. It will forever be a part of his character.