During the last weekend in March, the newly rebuilt Chemical Engineering Car team excelled at the AIChE North Central Regional Competition hosted by the University of Akron, earning first place in car performance, 2nd place in the poster
competition, and selected for the Students’ Choice Award.
The ChemE Car is a student project team tasked with designing a vehicle no larger than a shoebox that is powered by a chemical reaction. The team must calibrate its car to travel a specified distance carrying a specified volume of water. The distance and volumes are announced on the day of the competition. The winning team is the one whose car comes to a complete stop closest to this target distance. This event originated as a class competition in Professor Scott Fogler’s reactor design class, and since 1999 has been a fixture of student regional AIChE conferences. Over thirty schools qualify to compete at the national conference every year.
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| Marty Witt and Eric Miller getting the car ready at the starting line. | The Winning Car |
This year’s Michigan car was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, coupled with a magnesium/hydrochloric acid stopping mechanism. By precisely controlling the concentration of acid eating away at the magnesium, the team could time how long the car would run. Once the magnesium strip completely dissolved, the circuit between the fuel cell and motor would break, effectively stopping car. The team advisor is Professor Levi Thompson, Pablo LaValle serves as technical advisor, and much of the work took place at the College’s Wilson Center facilities. The team would like to thank them and their sponsors: Shell Oil Company, the University of Michigan Engineering Council, the College of Engineering and the Chemical Engineering department.
It has been almost a decade since the spotlight shined upon the Chemical Engineering Car team, which won the national title in ’99 and dissolved several years later. The new team of motivated chemical engineering undergraduate students, led by president Alvin So, will compete in November 2008 at the National AIChE conference in Philadelphia in hopes of bringing the title home again. “We are thrilled to see the enthusiasm and energy of our students, and their willingness to put their ChE training to the test at the ChE car competition,” said Professor Larson, chemical engineering department chairman, on learning of the team’s success at the regional conference. He added “Congratulations to the team on their success, and Go Blue.”
2008 ChE car team after their victory – Marty Witt, Alvin So,
Eric Miller, Eric Lee, Brittany Kasner, Courtney Howder,
Christine Krizmanich, Gerry Bong, Eric Chuang, Tim Finch,
Joe Yonkoski