The Mississippi State University EcoCAR 2 team arrived in Los Angeles last month with only 481 of 1000 possible points for the Year One phase of the EcoCAR: The Next Challenge, a phase emphasizing engineering design through modeling and simulation.
The team’s only chance at bringing home first lie in the presentations they would be giving over the six-day event.
Though the team was excited to be in L.A., EcoCAR 2 Outreach Coordinator Kimberly Torries, said there was still a somber feeling about arriving in fourth place.
“Overall, we have finished first four out of eight times we have entered these competitions,” she said. “It’s kind of a bummer to get there and remember, ‘oh yeah, we are in fourth’.”
After acing the presentations, which ranged from a technical report to a trade show evaluation, MSU’s EcoCAR 2 team was exactly where they felt like they should be.
“We pretty much pulled through with our presentations and ended up taking first,” Torries added nonchalantly.
Today, the EcoCAR 2 team is headed to Washington D.C. for two weeks to promote the Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions and to showcase the team’s accomplishments. This is all part of the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival held on the National Mall.
MSU’s team will be a part of the Sustainable Solutions section in the Campus and Community program put on by the Smithsonian festival, which has more than 1 million visitors annually. The idea is to educate visitors on sustainable practices in the automotive industry.
EcoCAR 2 will not be accompanying the team because it is still in the development stage Torries said, but the team will be bringing their previous model, a 118 mpg SUV hybrid with a 60-mile all electric driving range, to showcase.
“With EcoCAR 3, we were really trying to beat the idea that you can’t have power with a hybrid,” Torries said. “(EcoCAR 3) goes zero to 60 in 5.5 seconds, that almost beats the Ford Mustang’s zero to 60 by an entire second.”
Controls Group Leader for MSU’s team Blake Brown said the biggest difference between EcoCAR 3 and EcoCAR 2 (EcoCAR 3 came first) is simply going to be size, but noted the fuel component would be different as well.
“We are going to have a lot less space to work with in EcoCAR 2. It’s a car, a Malibu, as opposed to an SUV, so that will definitely make a difference,” he said. “And the past two vehicles we have had used bio-diesel, so it’s going to be a change for us to now implement ethanol on EcoCAR 2.”
General Motors and the Department of Energy sponsor AVTC, competitions aimed at accelerating the exploration of sustainable vehicle solutions, and Torries said she thinks it is one of the few successful government partnerships with private industry.
“The DOE is really devoted to this project,” she said. “Each team is assigned a mentor from GM and given 25 other sponsors that donate components and advice to the teams.”
Torries also pointed out how beneficial the AVTC can be for both General Motors and those participating.
“In my mind, GM has got this figured out. They are taking 15 teams of students that are highly trained and having them put out 15 new designs in one year, and it’s in a competitive environment, so all the ideas should be completely original. They couldn’t get that in-house,” she said. “Then for us, after we finish our degrees, we have 27 different organizations that are willing to hire us because of our experience.”
Along with Torries and Brown, the EcoCAR 2 team traveling to Washington includes faculty advisor Marshall Molen, Team Leader Matthew Doude, Lee Prat, Mechanical Group Leader Josh Hoop, Tom Goddette, Haley Doude, Electrical Group Leader Jon Moore and Will Dickerson.
The work the competing EcoCAR teams do is state-of-the-art and multifaceted, and Torries said MSU’s team just happens to be one of the best in the country.
“Our team is known for taking those requirements and taking it up about 17 notches,” Torries said. “The problem is the next year, what we have done has become the standard, so we are challenged with outdoing ourselves each year.
One of the goals of our team is to really help the reputation of Mississippi as a big contributor to the automobile industry.”
For more information MSU’s EcoCAR team visit cavs.msstate.edu/projects/ecocar/
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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