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| Adviser Bruce Aittama, second from left, joins four team members from Greenville High School’s electric car team celebrating their state championship. They include, from left, Jake Besemer, Kurt Cantile, Matt Besemer and Paul Wright. |
| | Club looking for members | Greenville High School's electric car team is looking for new members for the 2009 season.
Contact technology instructor Bruce Aittama at (616) 225-1000 ext. 8167 for more information.
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6/5/2008 11:34:00 AM
GHS electric car team claims state title
Jessica Dudenhofer
Staff Writer
GREENVILLE - Greenville High School successfully captured another state title this year.
Unlike the Yellow Jacket team wrestling state champions, many people didn't even know about the other one and few were in the stands to cheer the squad on to victory.
Six students - Jake and Matt Besemer, Kurt Cantile, Chris Norman, Sean Willard and Paul Wright - made up the school's electric car team that competed through the National Electric Cart Association (NECA) in Coopersville. Advised by technology instructor Bruce Aittama, the six drove away from the 2008 season as the state's stock division champions for the first time in Greenville's long history of participating in electric car races.
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They defeated teams from Byron Center, Coopersville, Mona Shores, St. Clair and Summit along the way.
"Our program is just an after-school club," said Aittama, who helped guide the teenagers with designing the car and improving it between the season's four competitions during April and May in Coopersville and Marne.
Team members often would meet after school to work on the small, plastic-shelled race car, test-driving and modifying it along the way.
"It's a 1999 or 2000 vehicle," Aittama explained. "We tried to build on what we learn. We modify every time."
Aittama was there to guide the students and offer suggestions but the students did all the work on the car themselves.
Senior Matt Besemer, 18, has been a member of the electric car squad since his sophomore year. He and his freshman brother, Jake, always have enjoyed cars and racing so the team was a natural extension of that.
"I mean, it's an electric car," Besemer said, looking down at the vehicle he drove with pride. "You don't get to be around cars all the time."
Some of their newer teammates feel the same excitement.
"I like the racing part of it," said Norman, an 18-year-old senior who joined the group near the end of this season. "I've always liked the team aspect."
Electric cars aren't the typical loud, roaring machines that race to beat other vehicles to the finish line in the shortest time possible. They're designed to conserve energy efficiently - not burn it up quickly.
"The key is how far you can get in a certain period of time," Matt Besemer said. "Whichever car releases energy slower wins."
The practically silent cars average a speed of about 30 miles per hour but can reach from 40 to 50 in ideal conditions.
Aittama said many of the team members have studied computer-animated design (CAD) through the high school, but learned even more through hands-on experience.
"This is the future of technology," he said. "Looking at the price of fuel, this is the future."
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