After yanking the starter cord about 200 times and seeing faces in the crowd losing hope, the modified go-kart idled, and a graduate student took off during his first successful test run on April 5. 

Mitchell Sempowicz, a graduate student in technology who will receive his master’s at the end of the semester, chose to mount a biomass gasifier onto a go-kart so it could be fueled by wood chips. 

When he told others about the project he was pursuing for his independent study, they were surprised and did not believe he would succeed, he said. 

However, after warming up the engine for about two and a half hours with the same wood chips that are burned in the Renewable Energy Center, Sempowicz propelled about 75 yards.

“Once everything was finally ready, I jumped in like the Dukes of Hazzard, and I went all the way down from the Klehm (Hall) loading dock to the Life Science Building,” he said. 

Once he fired up his modified ride, the crowd began roaring and high-fiving, he said.

This project was not Sempowicz’s first experience with go-karts. He grew up driving not only go-karts, but also motorbikes and four-wheelers. 

“I grew up messing with tools in the garage or working on cars with my dad, and I was always building motorized scooters and really anything I could put a motor on to,” he said. “My garage was always a mess, but my mom and my dad were always supportive.” 

He said he was always interested in taking a part a problem and solving it by making all of the pieces work. 

For his project, he fabricated a biomass gasifier so he could generate syngas, also known as synthetic gas, from wood chips and feed it to the engine. 

He welded a fitting to the carburetor and connected a pipe to it, and he tested the gas by funneling it to an exhaust pipe at the top of the go-kart and using a torch to light it.

Then, he would close the valve to the exhaust shoot and direct it to the engine. 

He gathered most of his materials from recycled scrap in the production studio in the School of Technology and the go-kart was donated. 

Sempowicz made a second test run on Friday, and he took off from the Klehm Hall loading dock after about 45 minutes of warming the engine.

“After the first test run, I installed an in-line gas switch so I could start the engine up on gas and switch it off once the engine was warm so it can run up on syngas,” he said. “I think it is harder to start on woodchips.”

In his first attempt, he burned about 15 gallons of wood chips, he said. 

Jake Beadleston, a senior applied engineering and technology major, attended the test runs and said he observed Sempowicz working on the go-kart since the beginning of the semester. 

“Once he took off, I thought he was going to drive all through campus, and I am glad that it didn’t choke out on him,” Beadleston said. “I think his project speaks volumes about what we can do here with our resources like the Renewable Energy Center, and this is just the beginning.” 

Rachel Rodgers can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].