A team of student engineers from Texas A&M University has received top honors in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ (AIChE) regional Chem-E-Car competition for the performance of its student-designed alternative-powered vehicle.

With the big win, the hydrogen-powered mini-vehicle, which was designed by Ani Attang, Mark Deimund, Elida Espinoza, Michael Finkelstein and Gene Hackebeil, will advance to the national Chem-E-Car competition. That competition is scheduled to take place in November during the annual AIChE meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

“I felt confident that our car would do reasonably well,” said Deimund, a junior in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering. “Our design is pretty simple, pretty straight forward. We did a basic systems check when we got [to the competition] to make sure everything was working properly. After that, I felt confident that things were going to go well.”

The Chem-E-Car competition, first raced in 1999, provides students the opportunity to apply their knowledge of chemical engineering principles while helping build interest and expertise in alternative fuels.

The goal of the competition is to create a shoebox-sized car that runs off of a chemical reaction a distance from 50 to 100 feet. The distance is specified at the competition, and teams calculate the amount of reactants needed to move the correct distance.

In this year’s event, students were challenged to transport 250 milliliters of water 63 feet. Each team received two chances to run their cars, with their final score being their best attempt at meeting the established distance.

“This year we decided to bring it back to basics,” Deimund said. “We have to use a different drive train system each year, so we figured this would be good time to just use a hydrogen fuel cell and focus on distance and get our precision down. We learned more about the experimenting process, how we could control parameters, how we can get the absolute best results. That was kind of the philosophy behind this car, and it ended up paying off pretty well.”

In the time leading up the national competition, the team, Deimund says, will focus on making modifications to improve the overall reliability of the car. In addition he and his fellow team members will be working to improve other variations in the car’s design in an effort to make the care perform as precisely as possible.

The complete research, design and construction of the vehicle required about a semester, Deimund said, and was undertaken as part of a one-hour course in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, established by Senior Lecturer Lale Yurttas and Associate Professor Victor Ugaz.

The course, which began in 2007, helps to formalize the work of the student participants while introducing them early in their academic careers to all phases of engineering design. Students use project management tools, learn issues of safety, reliability and environment, and recognize the importance of working in teams. Prior to the establishment of the course, preparation for the competition was entirely extracurricular and undertaken as part of the Texas A&M’s AIChE student chapter.

Written by: Ryan Garcia at ryan.garcia99@tamu.edu

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