Rescuing someone trapped on an icy river is often a slow, dangerous, and expensive process. Current ice rescue vehicle include: hovercrafts, airboats, sleds, and even helicopters. The Mechanical Engineering design team of Kris Mayer, Jeff Niedermayer, and Lisa Simi set out to create an affordable and effective ice rescue vehicle (IRV).
In the past there have been basically two types of ice rescue techniques available for small towns and communities. Manual rescues, which utilize no sort of support craft, are slow and dangerous, but affordable. Vehicle rescues, on the other hand, are faster and much safer, but are often beyond the price range of most rural and suburban neighborhoods. Because no “middle ground” exists between these varying rescue tactics, valuable time, resources, and even lives have been needlessly lost. The College of New Jersey team’s design is an air-propelled vehicle with a lightweight aluminum metal frame built around a Sea Eagle SE-9 Inflatable Motormount Boat. The outer frame supports skids capable of gliding across icy surfaces with the inflatable boat still being able to maintain buoyancy in water. The total cost of the entire IRV is roughly 2500 dollars, well within the affordability range for even smaller townships.
In tests the IRV often exceeded the projected expectations of the team, most notably on ice where its speed was faster than originally expected. Additionally the IRV came in 100 dollars under budget meeting all the criteria that the TCNJ had set at the project’s start. It is an impressive design that could help not only save money but lives.
Learn More:
- TCNJ’s Ice Rescue Vehicle
- Patented Ice Rescue Vehicle
- Manual rescues
- Vehicle rescues