The new members of the climbing team included Noel Odell, Bentley Beetham and John de Vars Hazard. Andrew Sandy Irvine, an engineering student whom Odell knew from an expedition to Spitsbergen, was a so-called experiment for the team and a test for young blood on the slopes of Mount Everest. Due to his technical and mechanical expertise, Irvine was able to enhance the capacities of the oxygen equipment, to decrease the weight, and to perform numerous repairs to it and other expedition equipment.