The 2018 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge was the final collegiate event in which I competed, as I graduated several days after returning and started working full-time. For the 2018 Challenge, Kettering brought two vehicles - one competing in the ‘Internal Combustion’ class and one in the ‘Diesel Utility’ class. The Diesel vehicle was based on an improved version of my 2017 Diesel Control Capstone using the Mercedes OM660 ‘Smart CDI’ engine, and a Ski-Doo Tundra chassis.

My 2017 student capstone was done as an indepdent study project sponsored by Dr. Greg Davis, to implement an engine control system for a Common Rail Diesel engine for the 2017 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge. Kettering’s culminating undegratuate experience is not the capstone, but rather the undergraduate thesis. My undergraduate thesis was company sponsored and restricted due to trade secrets, but my capstone can be published here. To archive the data for future use, I have published it here.

While visiting my parents shortly before Thanksgiving weekend, the septic pump stopped working, resulting in a very slight ingress of fluid through the basement drain. My parents have an engineered septic system which unfortunately required the leach field to be located at a higher elevation than the septic tank behind the house. As we all know, shit flows down hill, and a pump is required to make it flow up hill.