Over the past few years, go-karts have become increasingly popular with not only young children, but also many teenagers and even adults. These tiny, lightweight race cars are commonly found in carnivals and festivals and even have numerous indoor tracks solely dedicated to go-kart racing and leisure rides. This year, the Engineering Club is working on constructing two of their own go-karts as their main ongoing project.

At the start of the first semester, the members of the Engineering Club came together to brainstorm project ideas for the upcoming year that could rival the club’s boat building project from the year prior, and go-karts were their answer. Although the club was able to agree on a complex and intricate project early on in their meetings, the next few steps in the go-kart creation process were not so simple.

First, the club needed to gather the materials to build the go-karts because although the club was permitted to use resources and materials from SPA’s design lab, they were still lacking several major parts for the go-karts such as motors and mainframes for the cars.

Fortunately for the club, after searching and asking around, sophomore Greysen Marlow was able to find a go-kart frame from a yard sale and bring it into the club. The Design and Innovation Specialist, Chris Huebner, was also able to assist the Engineering club by donating a children’s toy car for their use in constructing the go-karts. After acquiring these main pieces, the club was able to finally begin their building process.

“Everyone knew it would not be a short project, but also we don’t have that many meetings, so it’s hard even when we get stuff to work on it,” said club leader Bennett Sauer.

So far, the club has split into groups to work on the two go-karts separately, and some members have also opted to come after school on some days to work on the project. The club members have started to deconstruct the main frames of the go-karts in order to add in new parts, and they also plan on getting electric motors to power the cars soon.

With a project this extensive, the club leaders do not see the Engineering Club being able to complete the two go-karts within the second semester. However, club leader Nijah Johnson says, “I think if we work really hard, get all of our materials, and spend our free time working on the go-karts, we could finish them before Homecoming next school year. We could even use them for the Pep Fest.”

The Engineering Club has been considering the possibility of coordinating a go-kart racing event with USC at the Pep Fest next year if their projects are complete then. The go-kart racing may be incorporated into the Homecoming skit or it may be a student versus teacher race. However, the details are unclear at this point in their project-making process, and they will keep this event in mind as they move forward in the semester.

In the meantime, the Engineering Club is still working consistently at putting everything together and working with the mechanical aspects of the go-karts. The club meets in the design lab during club times in X-period as well as after school some days to work on their go-karts.