Chem-E Car Team Wins Second at International Competition
September 1, 2009
The LSU Student Chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, or AIChE, placed second overall in this year’s Chem-E-Car competition and first place in the poster presentation at the second International ChemE Car Competition, held at the eighth World Congress of Chemical Engineering (WCCE8). The LSU team competed with their car named “Swamp Thing” against universities from around the world, including Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Iran, Malaysia, and Australia as well as three other U.S. teams.
In this international competition, students were challenged to transport 1000 milliliters of water 50 feet. Each team ran their chemically powered cars twice and the best result out of the two runs for each team was used in the final standings.
After the first round, LSU’s “Swamp Thing” was in fourth place with a run of about 4 feet and 7 inches from the target line. Following a little fine-tuning of the parameters, the second run stopped 1 foot and 2 inches from the target line, which propelled the team to their second place finish. Puerto Rico stopped exactly on the line and was awarded first place. Third place went to the team from The Cooper Union and the team from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico was awarded fourth place.
The WCCE8 was held in Montreal, Canada, August 23-27. Members of the LSU car team attending the conference were Matt Daniel (team leader), Kirk Rollins (co-leader), Angela Juncker, and Ryan Pazdera, with Professor Francisco Hung serving as the AIChE car team advisor. The LSU team used citric acid and sodium carbonate as an alternative fuel form and received a prize of $750 for their efforts.
“Being on the team is a lot of hard work, but it offers invaluable opportunities,” stated Daniel. “It is a beneficial experience for any chemical engineer to overcome the obstacles associated with the design and construction of a model car run by alternative fuel. Representing LSU at the international level was a fantastic experience that we will never forget.”
Rollins agreed “While helping design and construct this car we got many opportunities to evaluate safe engineering design while building a machine for a specific purpose. The many hours required to design, construct, and test this car were well spent, as we were given the opportunity to represent LSU Engineering on an international scale. During this competition, we were given the chance to utilize many of the skills that we have acquired through our Chemical Engineering education at LSU.”
The Chem-E-Car competition, first raced in 1999, is a fun and practical way for students to apply their knowledge of chemical engineering principles while helping build interest and expertise in alternative fuels. Historically, chemical engineers have been involved in developing new fuel technology, and given the price of gasoline and concerns about climate change, it’s more important than ever for college students to learn about chemical reactions that can move vehicles.
“We got to learn some key values that can only be gained through experience, and had a blast while gaining useful, practical knowledge we will need later on in our careers.” said Juncker. “We were able to meet with other people and learn about the differences and similarities of chemical engineers all around the world.”
The car team secured their spot at this international competition by placing second in the car competition at the 2008 Annual Meeting of AIChE, which was held in Philadelphia last November. With their third place win at the regional competition in April 2009, they will once again be competing in the national competition at the 2009 Annual Meeting of AIChE in Nashville, Tennessee.
The team would like to include a very special thanks for the following people: Paul Rodriguez, Fred McKenzie, and Joe Bell.
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Article by Mimi LaValle and Melanie McCandless, LSU College of Engineering, Chemical Engineering Department, 225-578-3242, mmonce@lsu.edu
