Partnering With UW Platteville For Clean Snowmobile Challenge

This year, we at ArcticFX were able to give some assistance to the University of Wisconsin Platteville Clean Snowmobile Team!

The University of Wisconsin – Platteville participated in an annual competition called the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge.  This is an engineering competition for both undergraduate and graduate students that focus on the practical application of the lessons that they are taught in their classes.  This specific competition focuses exclusively on the ability of the team to apply their combined knowledge to create a device that has a centralized focus on reducing emissions as well as machine use.  This competition also has a positive side effect!  It aims to change the way we think about snowmobiling today by making the sport more environmentally friendly!  There are two different sections of the competition that the Platteville team participated in: gasoline engines and diesel engines.  Even with there being different classes of competition there are a few rules that are universal across the different competition levels.  The engines are expected to be quiet devices, emit less unburned hydrocarbons and produce less carbon monoxide all while being able to limit the amount of oxides and nitrogen pollution that would be created by the device.

With there being strict requirements for the engines to be considered for the competition, there is also an aesthetic component of the competition!  These modifications must be both practical and cost-effective, which is why when we were approached by UW Platteville about the competition, we at ArcticFX Graphics were more than happy to help out!  We outfitted their Arctic Cat sleds with our Curtis Mountain King Signature wrap to make them appear on the outside as impressive as they were on the inside!

We were even more excited to hear that this year UW Platteville’s team was able to surpass the rest of the competition!  The competition this year consisted of 13 different teams, from as far east as Quebec, Canada and as far east as Montana State University!  They received many different awards through the entirety of the competition.  The gasoline engine won the following awards: best performance, best design, most practical, and the propulsion efficiency award.  While the diesel engine was awarded the most innovative emissions design.  Through all of this rigorous and qualified competition, UW Platteville was also able to collect a final sum of 1,096.9 points, which was almost 40 points higher than the rest of the competition, they were able to take overall first place!  This is a very prestigious milestone for the team!  They have risen to great heights from all the way from 11th Place in the competition in 2017 all the way to taking home 1st Place this year!  We here at ArcticFX Graphics would like to congratulate The UW Platteville Pioneers on their victory and we hope to be able to work with them again as they change the way that we think about snowmobiling!