Human Powered Submarine Club to Compete in European International Submarine Race
The College of Engineering and Computer Science Human Powered Submarine (HPS) Club is competing in the their first European International Submarine Race June 25 in Gosport, England against other teams of university students.
The goal is to design an underwater vehicle that can be powered successfully by scuba-clad teams without malfunctioning, crashing into the bottom, popping to the surface or simply failing to move through the water. The principal objective is education: encouraging innovation in the use of materials, hydrodynamic design, buoyancy, propulsion and underwater life support.
Members of the HPS team design and race submersibles that are propelled by the students themselves. With the competition taking place underwater, these races are a challenge of human “peddling” strength and endurance, as well as a test of putting academic theory into practice.
FAU set its first official speed record in the International Submarine Race (ISR) in June 1991. At the eighth ISR in 2005, the team placed second overall in performance, claiming six out of nine possible awards while breaking FAU’s fastest time with 6.1 knots with a 15-year-old retiring submarine and former Guinness Book world record holder. In 2009, at the 10th ISR, the team reached a final speed of 6.298 knots, the fastest speed of any submarine in any category earning them the “Absolute Speed” award and second place in the overall team competition winning $1,250 in prize money to use toward building their next submarine.The races were originally launched by FAU Ocean Engineering in 1989 off the Riviera Beach coast. Later, the competition was moved to the United States Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Carderock Division David Taylor Model Basin in Bethesda, Maryland.
For more information about the HPS team and the competition visit the following sites:
June 19, 2012