Throwback Thursday: Spartan engineers build 600-pound chariot
This story written by Laura Luptowski Seeley was featured in the MSU College of Engineering’s Currents Magazine for its Fall 2001/Winter 2002 edition
It sounds like the fans in Spartan Stadium are cheering on the MSU football team. But they aren’t. The players are not even on the field yet.
It’s pre-game time and the crowd is cheering on two white horses. A chariot designed by four mechanical engineering students and pulled by two white Andalusians — named Go Green! and Go White! — made its debut September 8th in Spartan Stadium.
It all began spring semester 2000, when mechanical engineering students Kevin Bellville, Timothy Johnson, David LaRoy, and Steven Maurer were selected as the design team for the new chariot. Previously, MSU had commissioned a chariot and horses for football game appearances. It quickly became a symbol for the school, much like Sparty.
But some on campus, including Lonnie King, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, felt that this symbol of MSU should be truly an MSU-owned project. In addition, then, the chariot could be available for other activities, like alumni events. They approached the university administration with the idea, got approval, and started on a venture to have the horses and chariot become an MSU project.
King knew he could provide the horses, but he needed the help of the College of Engineering to build the chariot. Dean Janie Fouke contacted Brian Thompson, mechanical engineering’s departmental design coordinator and director of the Student Design Day Conference, and proposed that his students build the new Spartan chariot.
Community-focused project
Each semester, Thompson’s Mechanical Engineering Design Projects class, ME 481, divides into teams to solve real-world design problems. Each team of students submits a paper listing their top five project choices and reasons why they would be best suited to complete the project, which is presented at Design Day at the end of the semester. Usually, the students are assigned projects brought to MSU by industry. But occasionally, the students are involved in designing something for the community—such as the chariot.
“Dr. Thompson emphasized the first day of class that there were certain projects— like the chariot— that would require more work and dedication than the others, and that teams should decide just how much they could commit to a project before making their choices,” says Johnson. “Our team was pretty excited about the chariot project and listed it as our number one choice. We were confident that the awesome project itself would be plenty of driving force to make us do our best.”
They were chosen as being the best fit for the project, and the research and design phase began immediately, in early January. Actual construction of the chariot began on April 1, 2000; it was completed 26 days later.
“We knew it was going to be tough, but it was more time-consuming than I had ever dreamed it would be,” says Johnson.
“I don’t think any of the team members had more than 10 to 15 hours of sleep the entire final week of the semester, which we concluded with a double all-nighter,” says Maurer.
“I have never witnessed a more focused, intense group of students,” adds LaRoy.
“But without the help of other key people, the chariot would not have been completed,” Johnson admits.
Brian Thompson, professor of mechanical engineering, advised the students as they maneuvered through the necessary administrative channels, completed paperwork, and designed and constructed the chariot.
Roy Bailiff, a technical specialist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and manager of the Engineering Building shop, guided the students throughout the building of the chariot and welded the steel frame according to American Welding Society (AWS) standards.
Bailiff jokes that the chariot is “worthy to go around a track at 200 mph!” Not that it will be going that fast. The top speed of the average horse is about 30 to 40 mph, but Green and White will be traveling closer to 20 to 25 mph; safety is the key here, not speed. Robert Hammer, chemistry professor emeritus, donated the use of his home woodworking shop and his woodworking expertise.
But Hammer says it was the students who should be credited. “They were marvelous students, very talented in engineering, and very enthusiastic,” Hammer recalls. “They worked many hours in my shop—but I think they had fun.
Place in Spartan history
Unlike the industrial projects, says Bailiff, “where the students present the design, finish the project, and then it’s gone, this will be in the public eye for a long time.”
“They’ll go down in history,” Hammer says.
The chariot saw its first rays of sunlight the morning of April 27, says LaRoy, the day before it was scheduled to make its appearance at the Student Design Conference at the MSU Union Building. It was built in the basement of the Engineering Building and had to be craned out through a vertical shaft.
“We were all pretty nervous with the chariot in the air,” says LaRoy.
While the engineering students were at work designing and building the chariot, the College of Veterinary Medicine was raising funds to purchase and maintain the horses that would pull the chariot. They were searching for a matched pair of white Andalusian horses, trained to drive, with some experience in the show ring so they would be accustomed to noisy crowds.
“We couldn’t find them here in the United States,” says Hilary Clayton, the first Mary Anne McPhail Dressage Chair in Equine Sports Medicine at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and director of the McPhail Equine Performance Center. “The chariot was completed before we had the horses.”
A true case of putting the cart before the horse, which necessitated the use of a pickup truck to perform the final mechanical testing of the chariot. A matched pair of white horses, along with a third horse, was finally found at a farm in Malaga, Spain.
A $50,000 grant from the Irwin Foundation (which promotes higher education in veterinary medicine) allowed MSU to purchase the three Andalusians — two to pull the chariot on a regular basis, and one to be available as a backup.
By the time the purchase had been finalized, hoofand-mouth disease had broken out in Europe, causing a delay in shipping the horses into the United States. But finally, they were transported from Spain to Paris, then flew from Paris to New York via a customized 747.
Historic horsepower
After a brief quarantine, they were on the road to MSU. These world travelers arrived on campus the beginning of May—in fine condition, but exhausted. “The first time I saw the horses,” says King, “they were lying down in their stalls, trying to sleep.”
This collaborative project also involved the Department of Animal Science in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Brian Nielsen, assistant professor of animal science, is the designated charioteer. Russ Erickson, retired animal science professor, is the backup. They worked as a team to train the white horses.
Physically conditioning the horses to pull the chariot was only a small part of the training process. Whereas the chariot was specifically designed to perform consistently in a predictable manner, it was not quite the same with the horses.
Like children, horses don’t always do as they are told. They won’t always do what you think they will do— or what you want them to do. The horses’ training schedule during the summer consisted of trips to an empty Spartan Stadium, with piped-in music and crowd noises to acclimate the horses to a football atmosphere.
The horses also went on field trips to the various band camps practicing on campus so they could get used to the sights and sounds of a marching band. During the first visit to Spartan Stadium, says Clayton, “Go Green! was a little afraid of the white yardline markings. He didn’t want to step on those.”
But he got used to them during the workout, and by the time they were cooling him out after the training session, he was trying to eat the artificial turf.
“Nothing makes me prouder from my career at MSU than the chariot project,” says LaRoy. The students’ final written report describes the chariot. “The chariot features traditional styling and construction, with a wooden body, spoked wooden wheels, and a welded steel frame, trimmed with solid brass.
This traditional design is supplemented by modern features such as non-slip rubber flooring, driver stabilization bar, tapered roller bearings, hydraulic drum brakes, and an independent rubber torsion suspension system, happily making this one of the most over-engineered chariots in history! We look forward to seeing it representing MSU for years to come.”
“We strove to design and build a lasting symbol of Spartan spirit, the College of Engineering, and the students that attend our great school,” says Maurer. “We have hopes that the chariot will someday grace the field at the Rose Bowl.