Anybody need an electric car?

Rachel Morand Pictured with the BugE (left to right) are AHS teacher Byron Williams, 10th grader Rashaad Hughley, 11th grader Preston Rabren and 10th grader Vic Gutierrez.

High school teachers often try to get innovative and create ways to spark the interests of their students, getting them to learn without even knowing it. For the teens at Auburn High School in Byron Williams' industrial mechanics and pneumatics class, building a road-safe vehicle from a kit did exactly that.

"In a classroom they won't pay attention and won't learn nearly as much," Williams said. "Getting them out here to the shop and having them do the hands-on work, that's when they understand and learn what is going on."

Williams works for the City of Auburn, but for the past four years has been teaching industrial mechanics and technology classes at Auburn High, three different classes total. Each year he comes up with a project that his students can work on throughout the year, with the second semester kids picking up where first semester's left off.

This year's project was to put together a BugE, a single-seat, three-wheeled, electric-charged vehicle purchased as a kit and assembled by the students.

While the 16 kids in Williams' first semester group put together the base and added the wheels, the second semester students did the electrical work such as the lights, turn signals and accelerator. Initially Williams had 11 in the second semester, but one student— the only girl, who also served as a teacher's aide—dropped the class early on.

The vehicle has handles and brakes like a bicycle and is technically considered a motorcycle, so it doesn't need a seat belt. It runs off 48 volts with four batteries underneath the driver's seat. Completely electric, the BugE is charged up by plugging a cord into a standard house outlet, taking about five hours to charge in entirety.

The vehicle can travel up to 50 mph on a long, straight road, but the students take it up to about 30 mph while wearing helmets.

"When people get in it for the first time they're surprised at how responsive the throttle is," Williams said. He added that a week before the unveiling a student accidentally accelerated while exiting the vehicle and almost hit a table in the garage.

"Luckily I didn't see it happen," he said. "I probably would have had a stroke."

The finished project was presented on May 4 at the Auburn Chamber of Commerce with Gov. Bob Riley in attendance.

With experienced workers taking on the project, the BugE can be assembled in about 40 hours.

Since Williams is teaching kids who come into his class without any prior knowledge or experience about building vehicles, the project took almost two semesters and around 160 hours. A bus took the students from the high school over to the facility on Pumphrey Avenue, where the kids worked in the mornings or afternoons, depending on what time they had Williams' class.

For the first two to three weeks of each semester, Williams explained safety and tool identification in the classroom before taking them over to the shop.

Now that he has one completed car under his belt, Williams said he hopes to cut next year's assembly time significantly.

"I'd like to get three or four people in the community interested in the vehicle who will purchase the kits, and the kids will put it together for them," Williams said.

Williams was a car mechanic for a number of years, repaired boats in the Army and worked at Auburn University in the information technology department before becoming certified to teach the classes.

In previous years, Williams' students built two hovercrafts purchased from hovercraft.com that can reach 55 mph on the water.

According to the BugE Web site, the entire kit costs around $3,000. Some additional parts are necessary, but they can be found in local automotive shops. The BugE is created by Blue Sky Design and is based out of Creswell, Ore.

"The company is interested in being 'green' and reducing carbon footprints," Williams said. "They try to cut costs and the amount of shipping involved as much as possible, so they get you to buy things locally instead of wasting gas to ship it."

Last Friday was the Auburn High seniors' last day at school, which was the majority of Williams' class. He was down to three in the final week of school.

"This experience was a lot of fun," said 10th grader Rashaad Hughley. "We learned so much more than we would have in a classroom."

Hughley added that he is interested in the field of industrial mechanics and will take other classes that Williams teaches.

Another 10th grade student, Vic Gutierrez, took the class thinking he'd be working on cars and learning mechanics. Despite the mix-up, he was pleasantly surprised.

"I had fun in this class, but I wanted to work on cars," Gutierrez said. "It was really interesting, though."

The oldest of the group, 11th grader Preston Rabren, has taken two of Williams' classes and is planning on taking the third.

Williams said it was a shame that the kids who started the project that first semester weren't able to see it completed. Only a few came out to the unveiling with Riley. Regardless, the satisfaction of the students in knowing that they built a drivable vehicle from the ground up is what make his class special.

"That sense of accomplishment they get when it's all said and done is why we do this," he said.