BY NICHOLE ODEN
TIGER TV ONLINE REPORTER
BATON ROUGE, La. — As their senior project, a group of the class of 2010 mechanical engineering students are converting an old fire truck into a demonstration vehicle which will run on biodiesel fuel.
They call it the Tiger Truck.
After a year of planning the project, the group of 10 received a fire truck to work on from the District 10 fire department of Dularge, La. two weeks ago.
Scotty Verret, one of the group members said the Tiger Truck will have a deep fryer on the back of it. He said the vegetable oil used to fry food will then be converted and used as a biodiesel fuel.
“We had to think of a way to appeal to the people of South Louisiana,” Verret said. “If we were in California where people are interested in going green it would be easier to gain interest but not in South Louisiana. We decided to appeal to people’s appetite.”
Another group member, Blake Andermann, said students will actually be able to see the oil being converted into a biodiesel.
There is also an industrial cooler on the truck to keep temperatures on the truck balanced, explained Paulo Lubag, another group member.
The truck will also use electrical power like a hybrid.
“Hybrids use a mix of fuel and petroleum oil but no one has really combined hybrid power with biodiesel fuel,” Andermann said. “By making it a hybrid we use less fuel and the fuel we do use is better for the environment. It’s a win-win situation.”
Although the team is still in the early stages, they ran into one major hurdle: getting the fire truck to campus.
The students can’t take the fire truck from the fire department until they have presented the proper paperwork from the University.The University has yet to sign off on the paperwork because of insurance and liability issues.
The team has already gathered several sponsors including Zapps potato chips who is donating them the deep fryer and Manson Gulf who made a money donation. They are still hoping for more sponsors to help out with costs of the project.
The team really wants to get other students involved and informed about the project.
Lubag said they are looking for people to help in different fields of engineering and even people in public relations, marketing and accounting who would be willing to help with maintaining the website, promoting the project, monitoring funding and helping gain sponsorship.
“We want to incorporate people from all walks of life,” Verret said.
The project is required by the University for engineering students to graduate. It must be fully completed and reviewed by early May. According to Verret the presentation is nerve-wracking.
“It’s pretty intense,” Verret said. “Either you design it, do it well and pass or you spend another year doing it all over again.”
