USC engineering team places 3rd in competition

The USC Human Powered Vehicle Design Team, founded at the beginning of the fall 2014 semester sponsored by the Viterbi School of Engineering placed in the top 10 for every competition with a 3rd place ranking in the endurance event during a competition hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Senior Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The Human Powered Vehicle Challenge competition, held this past weekend in San Jose, California, hosted 36 teams from universities across the nation. The purpose of the competition is to design and create the best human powered vehicle with various requirements.

Brook Hammerschmidt, the founder and president of the team, started the design team so he could get hands-on experience in the field of mechanical engineering.

“I was kind of getting bored of my classes,” said Hammerschmidt, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. “I was doing well in my classes and I just wanted more of a challenge. I’m always into bicycling and stuff like that, and racing. I was originally going to join formula racing but it was so saturated, there was so many people but not enough tasks to do so I wanted to start my own team.”

Andrew Cull, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, said he faced a couple of challenges while trying to manage the team.

“One of the biggest challenges I faced was organizing and getting everyone together and involved,” Cull said. “Getting stuff done on time when you needed something done from another member of the team.”

Cull said there are currently two models of the vehicle and the second model is a lot lighter than the first without the unnecessary components from the first model.

Trevor Nelson, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, said he learned so much from being on the team than from lectures.

“Being an engineer is a lot more than just what you learn in being in classes so the theoretical knowledge that you get, there is going to be a huge disconnect after you graduate and start working,” Nelson said. “It’s not all going to be directly applicable. This is a great opportunity for engineers because it allows them to finally put what they’re learning to use in something that’s real and tangible.”

Ethan Sox, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, agreed with Nelson.

“A lot of the classes at Viterbi are theoretical, so with design teams like this, you get a lot of hands-on experience with building things with your hand,” Sox said.

Cull commented on the importance of joining a team like his as an engineer.

“This is important for Viterbi because this is what engineers are expected to do nowadays,” Cull said. “They said that if you just have a 4.0, no one is going to like you as an applicant because it’s kind of boring. They want you to have design team experience or some kind of out of class experience and that’s what we offer.”