Mark Rockwell drew a lot of stares driving through downtown Pittsburgh with a hand-built, solar-powered motor boat strapped to the roof of a 1981 Mercedes.
One rubbernecking motorist even pulled out a camera to get a picture of the unusual vessel on its way to a test run in a Butler County lake.
This weekend Rockwell and an enterprising band of fellow students from Carnegie Mellon University will embark on an even longer journey with the boat they designed and built from scratch in a Squirrel Hill garage.
They will drive almost 1,000 miles to Fayetteville, Ark., to become the first team from CMU to compete in the 13th annual Solar Splash 2006 World Championship of Solar/Electric Boating.
The intercollegiate regatta run by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers promotes the use of alternative energy sources while giving students hands-on engineering experience in a competitive setting.
Rockwell, 20, of Farmington Hills, Mich., is an aspiring roller-coaster designer who assembled the group of more than 10 engineering, business and design students to enter the Solar Splash competition with a red-and-black boat they named "The Carnivore."
"Our whole mentality was that we are the carnivore, that we are going to do whatever we need to do to get the boat done," said Rockwell, a Carnegie Mellon senior. "The project was not very easy. We had a lot of complications."
The students raised about $6,500 from corporate and individual sponsors, developed relationships with local boat experts, found space to build the boat and undertook the large-scale design project.
They crafted a plywood hull and outfitted it with four solar panels that charge the battery needed to drive the boat's motor.
Trial runs on Lake Arthur in Moraine State Park proved the boat seaworthy. On a clear day, it can cover distances of more than a mile and move at speeds up to four knots.
This week, Rockwell and teammates Ming Huo, 21, of New York City, and Will Wedler, 20, of St. Louis, are fine-tuning "The Carnivore" to make sure it complies with the strict rules for the five-day competition, which features slalom, sprint and endurance races.
As first-time participants, the students do not expect to win, but they hope to establish a foundation for future Solar Splash teams at Carnegie Mellon.
Solar boats aren't likely to become a practical alternative to gas-powered boats any time soon, but the students developed valuable knowledge about renewable energy and the mechanics of boat-building, they said.
"We put the things we've been learning all along in the classroom to good use," Huo said.
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