Tim Dolan’s focus on tractors is beginning to interrupt his life.

Until June, Dolan’s fiancee will have to wait for help on wedding plans because Tim is busy preparing for a team tractor competition.

Dolan, senior in agricultural engineering, is one of 14 students in the agricultural and biosystems engineering department who is preparing for the 2005 Annual American Society of Agricultural Engineers’ National One-Fourth Scale Tractor Design Competition.

Students will compete with 30 other schools in the United States and Canada with their one-fourth scale tractor, which is about the size of a lawn mower.

The team works on the project every day, spending about 20 hours a week on it, Dolan said. The tractor planning began in August 2004.

“It’s a good combination of applying knowledge, skills and common sense,” said Eric Zieser, senior in agricultural engineering. “Way more practical experience than a class environment.”

Dolan said fund raising, finding potential sponsors and public relations were the first steps.

The group has about $5,000 so far, and the rest comes from actual tractor part donations from companies, he said.

In September, the team began testing the tractor from last year and seeing what improvements needed to be made for the 2005 design, Dolan said.

The next two months were spent designing the tractor on a computer and searching for parts. The group used an engineering computer program, Pro/Engineer, to draw parts for the tractor, he said.

Then the team began to obtain parts for the tractor, Dolan said.

John Deere’s Des Moines Works, Sauer-Danfoss, NAPA Auto Parts in Ames and Polaris Industries all give the ISU tractor team parts for the project.

Without tractor part donations, Dolan said the tractor construction would cost around $15,000.

From now until June, the team will build and paint the tractor and perform tests.

He said this is a challenge, as time must be sacrificed to construct the tractor in a timely fashion.

The team members said high expectations from the judges is another obstacle of the project. At the contest, they are required to provide a cost report, tables, test data and several other items about their tractor.

Jackie Hinrichs, junior in agricultural systems technology, said having everything put together correctly is also difficult. Last year, she said, gears in the tractor were put on backward, so it was going faster in reverse.

“We ended up taking it completely apart two days before competition,” Hinrichs said.

The tractor team members said the competition enables them to make industry contacts and develop practical engineering experience.

The contest will take place from June 1 to 4 in East Moline, Ill.

The contest has five different divisions: design report, oral presentation, maneuverability, Web site contest and a pulling competition.

This year, the team hopes to place in the top five teams and win the pulling competition, team members said.

This portion of the contest involves hooking a sled of four different weights to the tractor and measuring how much the tractor can pull.

In 2004, the team placed seventh overall and won the Web site division.

“All this work is coming to an end and serving a purpose,” Zieser said.

The contest is judged by industry professionals from companies such as John Deere and Caterpillar Inc.