GULF SHORES — Ask any member of the Turbo Dolphins at Gulf Shores Middle School what one of their favorite classes is, and most will tell you the same thing: Greenpower.
The Greenpower Program at GSMS puts the students in charge of the show. In the class, students do everything from assembling, designing and engineering racecars to making adjustments as needed and, of course, racing them.
"The goal of the program is to advance understanding of STEAM topics and inspire innovation through the immersive experience of designing, building and racing these single-seat, electric power racecars," said Brittney Reeves, GSMS after school program director. "Students get hands-on, real-world experience in the engineering field through this incredible program."
GSMS participates in two Greenpower divisions: Goblin and F24.
The school has five cars, all named after members of Marvel's Avengers: Spiderman (F24), Captain America (F24), Hulk (Goblin), Iron Man (Goblin) and the newest addition to the team, Black Panther (F24). Black Panther arrived at the school in April and marks the first car the current class members design and assemble themselves.

The Goblin race division is designed for students aged 9-11. Goblin races have three types of tracks: Slalom event, drag event and head-to-head sprint. This is the first year GSMS sixth-graders have competed in the Goblin division. At their first race, they came home with first-place overall and a total of five trophies from a single race.
The IET Formula 24 division is where the seventh- and eighth-graders compete. During the school's first race of the season, Spiderman placed third.
"There are a lot of things in a race weekend," said Caden Bennett, a member of Team Spiderman. "First, you have to drive there. On Friday, we have scrutineering, which the officials will look over the car, make sure that you're not trying to cheat and that everything is safe and locked in. That takes about three pages worth of checking. Then, on Saturday, there's an endurance race, where the cars drive around the circuit for 90 minutes, and the car with the most laps wins. There are three drivers for each car in an F24 race. Each one gets 30 minutes in."
Another piece of the puzzle comes from an unexpected angle: above. Watching through a headset, drone pilots are able to follow the racecars along the track, making sure everything is running smoothly. If the pilots notice anything off, they communicate immediately with the pit crew chiefs, who then communicate to the drivers via wireless headsets. The minute the car comes into the pit, the crew is ready to tackle the issue.
On race days, adults do not help in the pit. Students take control of the situation without any adult assistance. Each car is allowed two batteries with 90-minute run times each. There are no charges between races, no other energy sources allowed, so drivers must pace themselves to ensure the batteries last the entire cycle.
"I think that Greenpower is an amazing opportunity for everyone in it," Bennett said. "It gives the drivers a taste of what it's like to go fast and race, and everyone gets to explore teamwork with everyone else in terms of building the car and the pit crew, and overall it's just a really good opportunity for everyone."
LEARNING CONTINUES OFF THE TRACK
Hands-on experience may be the biggest draw to the program, but what goes on in the classroom when the students are off the racetrack?
"We talk about gear ratios, which is our mathematical expression of how much speed or torque we want for the vehicles," said Scott Prince, program director. "We take a look at tires and select which tread we want to go to. Calibration is always huge, making your frontend alignment to your backend alignment; it's a big deal."
Tristyn Kutz, of Team Hulk, who joined the program this school year, enjoys working on the cars to learn how they work.
"During our first race, we were driving circuit and a gear in our axle was shifting, causing the car to die. So when we took it back to fix it, we had to work on it, figure out the problem, take off some parts to fix that part and then put the parts all back on. It's just really cool seeing how they work and solving the problem," Kutz said. "It's not all about racing and being competitive. It's all about working together, having good teamwork, problem solving, just finding ways to fix things and having a good time, just have fun," he added.
The program came to GSMS in the 2018-2019 school year. A large portion of its funding comes from the 21st Century After School Program grant, as the majority of the race team attends the After School Program.
The Dolphin Foundation has also been a large supporter of the program, and they also get support from local businesses.
Prince said the program is far from done. In the future, he'd love to see it advance into the city's high school. Many students who graduate into Gulf Shores High School return to help after school, not ready to put Greenpower behind them.
Then, there's the races.
"Obviously what we want to do is to start hosting races here," Prince said. "We want to host a Goblin race, and we want to host an F24 race during the next race season. We can do that, we just need to modify a little bit of our current campus with some minor finetuning, and we can host those events super smoothly."
But he doesn't want to stop there.
"The Greenpower International Race is my biggest overarching dream that I have," Prince said. "If we win the national championship next year, that puts us up for the international competition. That's where we're heading, and that is what we want to do. We are very ambitious, and it's going to be an amazing journey, and that is where we're going. And these students right here, I couldn't be prouder of this team, they are amazing."