Those students are the members of Tech's Future Truck team, a combination of mechanical and electrical engineering majors who revamped a regular vehicle and got it to run using hydrogen as fuel.

Andrew Leslie, a graduate student studying electrical engineering, led the team, which returned earlier this week from the Future Truck competition in Dearborn, Mich.

Leslie said the competition was a good experience for everyone who was involved.

"It was a lot of fun. There were some new guys on the team and we got to work hand-in-hand with Ford engineers," he said.

The competition began on June 9 and concluded on the 17th at Ford's Michigan Proving Ground near Detroit.

Teams of students from 15 universities were challenged to reengineer a conventional Ford Explorer. The goal for the teams was to achieve at least a 25 percent higher fuel economy without surrendering performance, safety and affordability that consumers demand, according to the Future Truck Web site.

The team from Tech has been participating in the competition since 2000.

The Future Truck competition was initiated five years ago to address the increasing demand for sport utility vehicles and the environmental and energy related issues they bring with them.

Timothy Maxwell, an associate professor in the mechanical engineering department, advised the team that represented Tech at the competition.

The U.S. Department of Energy and Ford Motor Company were both headline sponsors for the competition.

The teams competed using a variety of alternative technologies, including advanced propulsion systems, lightweight materials, hybrid electric designs and alternative fuels such as hydrogen, ethanol and biodiesel.

The competition is important because of steadily increasing gas prices, Leslie said, and the trucks the teams are improving can get an increased fuel economy by 25 percent.

The teams are judged in more than a dozen events to evaluate technical performance, including acceleration, trailer towing, off-road handling and on-road fuel economy.

This year, Tech won the Lowest Regulated Tailpipe Emissions event. The team also received second place for the most innovative use of virtual instrumentation. The team brought home a total of $2,750 and a trophy. The money will go back into the program, Leslie said.

Chad Turner, a senior computer science and electrical engineering major from Floydada, said the competition was a good experience for Tech.

"I think it gives the university good publicity, it gets our name out there," he said.

This year was Turner's first year to go to the competition and he said it was a neat experience to be able to go to Ford's Michigan Proving Ground.

The overall winner of the competition was the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which has won the past two years.

Turner said the atmosphere was competitive because every team wanted win, but that did not hinder the spirit of cooperation and innovation. Turner said all the teams helped each other with problems that came up.

In the 2003 competition the team from Tech became the first team to use hydrogen as a fuel.

Leslie said the public will probably see the new innovations later in the future but not anytime soon.

The Tech Advanced Vehicle Engineering program, in addition to the Future Truck competition, is working with the Institute for Advanced Technology and the Department of Defense to develop a diesel hybrid electric vehicle. The program is also working on several different projects.