Hovercrafts are still a figment of imagination to many, a vehicle that only exists in movies or in high-tech laboratories. In reality, hovercrafts have been around for more than 50 years, and few know that Auburn University has been building and racing them for a full decade. They are nothing like Hollywood models, and according to Thomas Wills, sophomore in polymer and fiber engineering, "It's not like anything you've ridden before."
Auburn's team, the Hovering Tigers, hasn't raced in recent years, but that changed in April, when a new era of an old rivalry began. The team won the University Hoverbowl Challenge on Lake Lurleen in Tuscaloosa, facing off against the University of Alabama's new hovercraft team. Auburn's team members include Wills, Garrett Blackburn, Mary Palmer Cook, and Tom Fitzpatrick, as well as Holland Bankston, Nick Johnson, Alex Avery, Tam Thornton, Sanyam Shirgaonkar and Velislav Stamenov.
"The goal of this race was to get other schools involved, for it to grow," said Blackburn, team captain and senior in polymer and fiber engineering. He believes the Auburn-Alabama rivalry is an appropriate place to start this trend. "I can see other schools in the SEC joining in."
Teams from across the country were invited to compete in the race, sponsored by Hoverclub of America, but the Auburn-Alabama rivalry provided a particular interest to locals. "We had a competition," said Kent Gano, racing director of Hoverclub of America. "I believe the race could be the start of a collegiate division of hovercraft racing."
Auburn team members put in long hours to iron out the kinks before the race and fit in practice time for drivers to become accustomed to handling the vehicle. Their orange hovercraft, one of two vehicles the team races, is primarily fiberglass, a heavy, but inexpensive material compared to the carbon fiber used for the team's black hovercraft.
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The orange craft can travel on land and water, and is supported by a cushion of pressurized air — a fan controls the lift and moves air behind the hovercraft, giving it forward motion.
Bicycle handlebars orient a rudder that controls turns. The team chose to race the orange craft because the vehicle has been the recent "guinea pig" in the team's shop. It looks intimidating and complex, but according to Blackburn, it's actually quite simple.
"This is kind of the next step up," said Blackburn. "There's lots of trial and error, and a lot of tweaking and adjustments." He adds that there is plenty of skill available to build the vehicle because team members come from a variety of majors.
The Hovering Tigers team was formed in 2003 with help from former polymer and fiber engineering faculty member Fissal Abd Elhady, Peter Schwartz, the team's current faculty adviser and department head, and technical adviser Jeff Thompson, who is the polymer and fiber engineering composites lab technician at Auburn. He supervises and assists students with work performed inside the lab and at testing sites.
"We have a number of 'gearheads' and some beginners in mechanics," Thompson said. "It gives the students that grew up with grease under their fingernails a chance to put together their own creation and test it out in an exciting competition."
The team gives students practical hands-on design experience, and provides cross-disciplinary interactions in a team setting. "It's cool to see the stuff we've been learning in class and having a chance to put it into application," said Blackburn.
"You don't really have to know anything about this stuff," said Cook, as she watched team member Fitzpatrick drive the craft across the open fields at Auburn's Research Park on South College Street recently. "You just have to want to know about it. And you need to be OK with getting your hands dirty."
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