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Built for (human) speed
By LOGAN NEILL SPRING HILL -- In order to climb inside the tiny fiberglass hull of the SubLime, 17-year-old Natasha Hall practically had to fold her slender body in half. As she wiggled herself into the position she needed to be in to pilot the craft, she registered her findings with a groan. "Very claustrophobic," she said, peering out the hatch to her teammates standing outside the craft. "I mean, it's really tight in here." Perhaps the first thing one notices about the green and white vessel is that it isn't built for comfort. Rather, speed is the name of the game for human-powered submarines, and the one being built by a group of Hernando County high school students looks plenty fast, even sitting on its cradle. Barely 8 feet in length, and less than 2 feet across, it resembles a small torpedo, except that this craft's mission is to transport its pilot at a pace just shy of a full trot, using nothing but leg power. "The challenge was to make it just big enough to get in and operate," said Tom Johnson, 17, part of a team of seven students from Springstead and Central high schools involved in the project. Together, along with Springstead teachers Steve Barton and James Bush, they will accompany the craft to Washington, D.C., this summer for the International Human-Powered Submarine Races. The sub, now nearing the end of its construction phase, is poised to begin a series of sea trials over the next few weeks when the students will take turns testing the craft in an Olympic-size swimming pool. "It's pretty exciting," said Natasha. "We've put a lot of time and energy into it. The real fun comes when we put it in the water and see if does what it's supposed to do, to see if we did everything right." It isn't difficult to see how much of a labor of love the SubLime has become to its young builders. Somehow, the boat is much more than the sum of its parts or the hundreds of hours spent sculpting its shiny, smooth surface. To the students and the others involved, it represents the spirit of teamwork, a desire to fulfill a mission that's rewarded in the pride of accomplishment. To the uninitiated, the craft looks relatively humble. Built almost entirely of fiberglass, it weighs less than 35 pounds. Known as a "wet sub," it will be propelled solely by one person crammed inside with only an air tank to breathe. Inside are a set of hand controls that enable the pilot to steer the craft, all the while providing power through a bicycle-style pedal system to a variable speed propeller. According to Barton, who helped oversee the construction, the sub is capable of a top speed of more than 7 knots. "It's more sophisticated than you might think," said Barton, whose involvement in human-powered submarines dates to the early 1990s, when his son, Stephen, built one for a high school science project. Stephen later entered the boat in the first international human sub races in 1991 and placed fifth overall. Barton, a teacher's aide with Springstead's construction vocation program, first pitched the idea of building the sub last summer to some of his advanced shop students. Along the way, the project caught the interest of Bush, a social studies teacher, who agreed to help with the design. The teachers researched hull designs and agreed that the best adaptation for a one-person sub was a design NASA introduced as part of a rocket program years ago, Finally, construction began in a corner of the Springstead High shop room, where the students began assembling wooden molds that would help make the fiberglass skin. "We worked on it whenever we had free time in class," said Springstead sophomore Joe Greco. "The sanding alone probably took a month because it had to be as smooth as possible. We'd leave class covered in white dust." Barton is quick to praise the students' enthusiasm and work ethic. Save for the ready-made cabling that controls the steering system, virtually everything on board was handmade. A little backyard ingenuity enabled them to build a pedal system by welding a bicycle sprocket to a differential gear assembly out of a 1972 Mustang. They also constructed other components, including the propeller, drive shaft and hand controls. All of which is apt to seem pretty quaint once the students see the upcoming competition, said Barton. "All told, we spent about $1,500 on materials," said Barton. "That's a small fraction of what a lot of teams spend. Fortunately, this is one of those competitions that tests ideas rather than budgets." The races, which are sponsored by the Department of the Navy, are held every other year at a research facility near Bethesda, Md. The competition traditionally attracts between 30 and 50 entrants, including prestigious institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Virginia Technical Institute. The individual races take place at a depth of 30 feet and seek to see which sub hits the highest speed possible over a 100-meter straight course. In 2001, a French team set the world record at 7.2 knots. Though inexperienced in sub competition, the Hernando County team has managed to forge a camaraderie and a never-say-die spirit that seems to breathe an air of quiet confidence. Team members have also developed a small, dedicated following, which includes several retired World War II submarine veterans from Hernando and Hillsborough counties, who recently donated $600 to help defray the costs of going to the competition this summer. "This sub is part of a lot of people's hearts and souls," said Joe, who, along with Natasha, Tom, and Central High junior Mike Wiese will pilot the craft during competition. "It's all a part of us. We built it, and we built it to win."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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