DAILY LOBO new mexico
UNM monster mash see Page 4
monday February 18, 2013
The Independent Student Voice of UNM since 1895
Full of beetles, tree had to go
WINNERS
Bugs were getting inside President Frank’s house by Ardee Napolitano news@dailylobo.com
Juan Labreche / Daily Lobo Junior guard Tony Snell drives to the basket against Boise State at The Pit on Saturday. The Lobos went on to win 60-50 to retain first place in the Mountain West Conference. UNM leads Colorado State by ½ a game in the standings and will visit the Rams on Saturday. See full story on Back Page.
Santa Fe students build solar car by Robert Nott
The Santa Fe New Mexican SANTA FE — The Santa Fe High Bomber is ready to take on all comers — even though it spent much of its initial test drive in an unexpected pit stop the morning of Feb. 6. Students in the school’s automotive, automotive-collision and welding classes teamed up to build the 8-foot-long, 200-pound solar-electric midget car — made out of fiberglass and other materials — over the past 18 months. Senior Joaquin Piñeda sat in the driver’s seat as he prepared to test the car’s speed, stability and safety. “This is all about the kids learning through trial by error,” said welding instructor Al Trujillo, the forever-cheerful educational ringleader of the ensemble. He got a $60,000 Carl Perkins grant to fund the project. Perkins grants generally focus on vocational and technical programs. Trujillo divided the participating students into four work groups: the electric/solar team, the fabrication team, the engineering team and the body-andpaint team. A lot of school staffers suggested the students use the school’s colors, blue and gold, but the students chose the classic World
Inside the
Clyde Mueller / The Santa Fe New Mexican Santa Fe High senior Joaquin Piñeda gets ready to drive the solar-powered electric Santa Fe High Bomber on Feb. 6.
War II bomber plane colors as their inspiration. The vehicle has a solar panel on each side. How does it start? “You pull the trigger!” Trujillo said with a laugh. Actually, there’s an electric switch on the dashboard. Piñeda was chosen as the driver because of his weight: 164 pounds. The vehicle requires someone light, but not too light — “not Porky Pig,” one bystander
said — to man the controls. About 20 of the students who worked on the car, as well as another dozen students from a nearby Advanced Placement science class, stood by as Piñeda awaited Trujillo’s signal to start. Trujillo said this was the car’s first official test run. It was slated to travel about 50 yards down the pavement outside one of the shops on Santa Fe High’s south campus. Trujillo and some of
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the kids said it would be able to reach speeds in the 40 to 50 mph range. They planned to time it. At about 11:30 a.m., Trujillo yelled “Go!” The car began moving. Slowly. It made the 50 yards, barely inching to the finish line at the rate of about 5 mph. “What happened?” one of the students yelled as the car spurted along.
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Although UNM is a nationally recognized arboretum, therefore supposed to be filled with rare tree species, the University has at times had to cut down historic trees. UNM President Robert Frank said the University cut down one such historic tree near the University House in September. The tree was a goldenrain, about 100 years old, and Frank said it was cut down because beetles had infested the tree. He said the beetles posed a large problem to the University House, where he resides. “The beetles were big and they were in our house,” he said. “All we wanted is to get all the beetles out of our house. The beetles were bad, but losing the tree was sad.” But Frank said cutting it down was not entirely his decision. “The infestation was at a level that it couldn’t be treated,” he said. “We would not have undertaken this without any guidance. We did not cut down the tree on our own.” Gary Smith, the Physical Plant Department’s associate director for environmental services, maintenance and operations, said the infestation was severe and could have caused the tree to fall down and injure people or property. He said the removal cost the department $1,323. Smith said PPD is the only entity authorized by the University to remove trees on campus. He said that although it was unfortunate to have cut down a historic tree, the department did it to uphold campus safety. “It’s part of doing business at a public educational institution,” he said. “You don’t base decisions of this type on emotional attachments. One has to have the safety and well-being of the campus community foremost in mind.” Smith said that because trees in an urban setting such as UNM normally only live for 40 years, the goldenrain had a very long life by comparison. Frank said no tree has been cut down on campus since the goldenrain. Smith said there are 13,000 trees on campus, including the approximately 1,000 trees PPD planted during the last decade.
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