After winning the Bright House Star Teacher National Award last year for fabricating Medieval weapons, a group of Ambitious Hudson High School students were looking for a serious challenge. The students located and secured 4 scraped VW Bugs at a local scrape yard. The students researched different types of alternative fuels and how practical the possible modifications to use these fuels would be. Then the students teamed up with companies across the country to secure the supplies and technical expertise to recycle/refurbish the cars. After multiple consultations and weeks of research the
students made the ambitious decision to remove the original bug bodies in exchange for much lighter fiberglass bodies. The students will spend months rebuilding their cars engines and modifying the engines to run off alternative fuels. The students will then drive their vehicles cross country from Hudson Florida to San Diego California on a media campaign to raise awareness about hypermiling and the need for Cost Per Mile (CPM) education. CPM is a phrase coined by Eric J. Johnson, the phrase refers to calculating the Cost Per Mile taking into account the cost of the original fuel and the miles per gallon the vehicle gets from said fuel. Along the way students will monitor fuel consumption to calculate their MPG and their CPM. As a way to remember this project for years to come, students will keep their cars, and continue to maintain them as well! While in California students will meet with Bruce Meyers, the father of the fiberglass bug and the grandfather of hypermiling, he has been an intricate part of this project offering both his expertise and resources. This project is being made possible by the contributions of shop time and parts from companies like Classic Cambers, Best Buy, Amsoil, Advanced Auto Parts and Papa Johns.
