Many of the major car manufactures build electric cars; Ford, GM, Nissan, Toyota, Millersville University… wait, Millersville University is building an electric vehicle?
Yes, Millersville University is building an Electric VW Bus.
How did this happen?
It all started with a problem/challenge that faced the director of purchasing and campus services. David Errickson.
When MU has campus tours, some parents and students are not able to walk the full length of the campus tour. In order to help these visitors to campus, David looked into purchasing electric golf carts. Because the MU tour crosses public roads, golf carts could not be used.
One day over lunch David was mentioning his challenge to Albert(AL) Unrath, MU’s Instructional Designer who is both a car guy and an environmentalist. Looking at the challenge with an inventor’s eye, Al developed an idea. What if we converted a VW bus over to be an electric vehicle? Since Al’s personal philosophy is learning through doing, he calls it, “Putting Learning into Action” he wanted the bus to be built by MU students. He proposed the idea and concept drawing to Vice President for Finance & Administration/CFO, Roger Bruszewski and President Anderson and they were very excited. The project would
Last Gas Day. Albert Unrath with President Anderson
nicely support President Anderson’s sustainability, and student research initiatives. Al was given the green light to develop the project. From that date, he developed the full project, located and transported the VW bus, worked with Assistant Vice President for Facilities, Thomas Waltz, Jr. to get a garage on campus, worked with Roger and David to get funding, worked with Assistant Professor, Applied Engineering,
Safety & Technology Mark Atwater to bring in the students from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers(SME) who will be the starting builders, and Al is the daily manager/and chief wrench turner in the project.
By the way… since this project has no association with Al’s job as an Instructional Designer, he is doing everything for this project after work on his own personal time.
What started off as a challenge has now turned into a campus wide project, connecting faculty and students from across campus. Al’s plan is to start with the VW bus project and expand it to be the “MU Inventors’ Garage” into a place where any student/faculty/staff member can enrich learning through invention, design, development, and application. Students can be better prepared after graduation, if they can identify and use the knowledge and skills they have gained while at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.
The Electric VW bus will be on display at Made in Millersville event April 21st 2016 at the McNairy Library.
Learn more about the overall project by clicking on “Build – Follow the Bus Build” tab on this website.
Thanks to students who are helping with our website