Anacortes High School teacher Val Boyce was surprised but pleased when two former students called earlier this fall to see if they could spend a day rousing students’ interest in technology through a couple of winning experimental race cars.

Boyce teaches metals technology. His six classes span four levels of increasing skills, starting with beginners.

Boyce’s two former students, Matt Kelly and Eric Olausen, both 21, are automotive engineering students in the Vehicle Research Institute at Western Washington University, and members of the international Formula SAE car club.

Three other Anacortes grads — Erin Kelly, Isaac Stark and Paul Marsh — also are club members. All of them contribute to the design, engineering and construction of experimental cars for international competition.

Between their engineering studies and car club activities, Kelly and Olausen stay busy 80 hours a week. Nonetheless, they thought it would be fun to show some high school kids what they can do in college with technology skills.

Boyce quickly embraced the offer as a chance to reinforce his students’ interest in technology.

Anacortes High School doesn’t technically have an auto shop, although Boyce’s students work with cars. As long as cars are made out of metal, Boyce said he figures his students need to learn about automotive design, laminates, metals and their resistance to impacts.

“What we do all relates to other classes — physics, science, math,” Boyce said. “We just need to link up and work as a team; everything is interwoven.”

Kelly and Olausen showed up at the high school in late September with two experimental cars they helped build: an SAE Mini-Baja buggy and a Formula SAE race car. They talked to the students about technology and the technical skills needed to build a car.

“You can actually do some cool things and build some projects,” Kelly said.

The Formula SAE club at Western is run by the students, with a single advisor, Olausen said. Some students are riveted to the car projects; Olausen said they work up to 40 hours a week, almost year-round, to figure out designs and resolve engineering difficulties.

“We do it for no credit, and no pay,” he said.

Late last summer, club members started work on a new Formula SAE car, Olausen said. They finished building the Viking 43 in April.

The vehicle’s carbon fiber monocoque body and steel tube rear subframe make it lightweight — just 461 pounds dressed out for competition — and it stands only an inch off the ground. Four strong people can lift and maneuver it.

Olausen said the rear-wheel-drive, road-only race car has a mid-engine layout, with a 600cc Honda sport bike engine mounted in front of the rear wheels but behind the driver.

The project didn’t end with the car’s construction. Racing, the fun part, still remained.

Club members took the car in June to the international Formula SAE West competition at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif. In the event sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers, the WWU team raced against vehicles designed by teams from six other countries. Western placed sixth out of 80 teams.

“Our car goes about 90 mph; zero to 60 in about 3.5 seconds,” Olausen said. “It’ll burn out (burn rubber) through fourth gear, out of six.”

If seeing a high-caliber race car wasn’t enough to whet students’ educational and entertainment appetites at Anacortes, Kelly and Olausen brought along a SAE Mini-Baja off-road buggy created by Western’s SAE Baja team. The Viking 44 placed third out of a field of 90 in an international competition in May at the Caterpillar Demonstration Facility in Peoria, Ill.

Both the Formula and Mini-Baja vehicle projects encourage creativity.

The goal is to think outside the box with projects, said Kelly, who majors in plastics engineering with a vehicle design specialty.

Olausen said they visited the high school to generate interest for the team in general, and for the engineering program at Western.

He said that while the program is well-known in engineering circles, it isn’t so familiar at area high schools.

“We want kids to think ‘there is a reason to keep my grades up,’” he said.

Boyce said Kelly and Olausen are part of a wonderful program that takes an incredible commitment. He was pleased that they shared their experiences with his students and encouraged them to get into field.

“We have a whole generation of young people in dire need of skills. They have to know how to build something,” Boyce said.

n Kathy Boyd can be reached at or 360-416-2153.