Jason Maas, a member of the University of Idaho team, explained the purpose of the event, “The competition aims to engage students to modify snowmobiles to make them cleaner, quieter, and more fuel efficient. The week-long competition, held in Houghton, Michigan around March every year sees 20+ student teams from around the US and Canada compare their modified snowmobiles in events such as exhaustive in-lab emissions tests and a 100-mile fuel economy run. It is not uncommon for technology initially developed for this competition to be incorporated on vehicles produced by the major snowmobile manufacturers. This competition not only helps to advance “green” technology in the powersports industry, but also well-prepares college students in areas of working well in a team, project management, leadership, etc.”
The students recently received a new model snowmobile chassis that no longer supports serial communication for diagnostics. On this new engine and chassis, the team used an IXXAT USB-to-CAN module to intercept CAN signals from a dynamometer test engine to assist with both engine diagnostics and calibration.
Arjun Cardoza, Area sales manager at HMS Networks said, “This collegiate design competition challenges the students involved to find cleaner solutions and develop their engineering skills. At HMS Networks we work to continually decrease negative effects on the environment and choose environmentally smart ways of working. We are proud to promote these students to do the same at the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge.”
The team came home with multiple trophies from the event related to the performance of their snowmobile, including handling and acceleration. They received glowing feedback from the judges about the engine re-calibration they performed that was assisted by the HMS CAN to USB device. They also scored in first place among all teams at the competition for both their technical paper and presentation.
Lastly, they were awarded for best value, which was based on the snowmobile’s performance in the competition relative to its cost, and a best controls award related to their work calibrating a direct-injection engine. At HMS, we are committed to ethical and legal business, environmental, human rights, and labor practices on a worldwide basis. For information on HMS Industrial Networks Environmental policy click here: