A team of engineering students from NDSU was awarded several honors at a “clean snowmobile” challenge earlier this month.
The students compete with one goal in-mind – a quieter, fuel efficient snowmobile with less emissions. Junior Greg Murawski is captain of this year’s team, and says a couple dozen schools competed this year, which was the first year back after COVID. His team won second place in the diesel engine category, and also won awards for best handling and best fuel efficiency. They were also the only diesel team to complete toe 100-mile endurance event.
"What we do is we install a diesel motor from a European smart car, and we design a new tune for the engine, and a new exhaust for it too. Then we also make a lot of modifications to make the engine work and fit."
NDSU belongs to the Milwaukee chapter of SAE, or the Society of Automotive Engineers, which conducts the competition every year. Murawski says students who are members of SAE have an advantage when it comes to finding a career path after graduation.
"It's kind of a group that never gets enough light, but there's a lot of cool innovation that comes from it. I would say pretty much every student that's part of SAE almost gets a hand-written letter right into any program of motor sports, power sports, anything of that nature. So it definitely gives you a leg up over other people just graduating college."
The team will showcase its winning snowmobile at an open house this Friday, March 25, at Auxiliary Enterprises in Fargo. The event begins at 6:30pm.