While trying to escape the boredom of summer, two seniors, Kyle Huffaker and Malachi Swartz created a motorized tricycle. They said they wanted to do something valuable with their free time and what started off as a project to create a go-kart ultimately resulted in the creation of a motorized trike.

“It is a three wheeled go-kart per se that has an engine on the back of it,” Huffaker said. “You put PBC pipe over the tires so you can drift it around the corners.”

Huffaker said the front of the trike is made out of a mountain bike and the remainder parts are from the past go-kart project as well as new materials.

“I worked this summer and ended up just paying for the entire trike,” Huffaker said.

Swartz helped Huffaker along the way although he has had minimal experience with engineering.

“He [Swartz] doesn’t know a lot but he’s been learning, I’ve been teaching him, he’s been able to help out on that,” Huffaker said.

Swartz said he and Huffaker have already spoken about making more projects in the future.

“Now that we’re done with this one we’re looking at the flaws to it and how we can make corrections and modify it to work better,” Swartz said.

Huffaker said they not only wanted a project to keep them busy over the summer, but something they could have fun with when they finished.

A key skill Huffaker said he learned from the trike was mastering how to weld. Welding is taking two pieces of metal and making them into one.

“I want to be an architect or some kind of wood tech engineer and it’d be nice to be able to weld something if I need to,” Huffaker said.

Huffaker has been a student in Woods Technology for three years now. His teacher Darren Masten has been teaching him for the past two years.

“I would guess it doesn’t even feel like a class to him, he’s the kid as soon as the bell rings he’s in here working he doesn’t have to wait on me to tell him to get working” Masten said.

“You can tell he loves it but I think he loved it way before I met him”.

The biggest challenge for Huffaker was getting the trike to turn successfully which caused them to rethink their design. 

“Getting the motor to fit on the trike and finding the right kind of clutch that fits with the engine [was a challenge], that took us awhile to find,” Swartz said.

Despite the hardships, Huffaker and Swartz said this project was an enjoyable hobby.

Swartz said his favorite part of these past two projects was getting work with his friends on something they all take an interest in.

“I learned how to problem solve like when something went wrong I’d have to come up with solutions to fix it,” Huffaker said. “I learned how to find something I enjoy and pursue it to the end.”