Wayne State University's EcoCAR 3 brings home several awards from the Year One Final Competition
Wayne State's EcoCAR 3 team from the College of Engineering earned several awards at program's Year One Final Competition, placing 10th overall among North American universities. Fourteen members of the team took part in the competition, held in Seattle between May 30 and June 5.
Before arriving at the competition, the team completed 17 pre-competition technical reports and deliverables, entering with a fifth place overall standing.
"This is the first time in either EcoCAR 2 or 3 that our team has ranked among the top six going in to the final competition week," says Jerry Ku, associate professor of mechanical engineering and faculty advisor to the EcoCAR 3 team. "This team is extremely motivated, and I predict even more success in the remaining three years of the competition."
With a perfect score for the Baseline Waiver, the team was honored with the Best Baseline Waiver Award (BBW). The BBW deliverable is used to orient the teams to the complexities of the competition waiver process and requirements for structural analysis. The team also received the award for Best Final Technical Report, a Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)-style paper ready for publication that is used to document the year's modeling and simulation, and also controls the team's engineering work. The Wayne State team also received the Spirit of Project Management Award to commend the special effort and achievement in the area of project management. Lastly, they received the Ron Stence Spirit of the Challenge Award for demonstrating exceptional perseverance in the face of adversity, maintaining a positive attitude throughout the competition despite significant challenges.
During the Year One Final Competition, the team gave nine scored presentations, including a tradeshow exhibit. They also gave three Women in Engineering presentations, participated in a youth education day and networked with industry representatives at the sponsor social.
The end of the Year One Final Competition marks the beginning of the second year of this four-year project. During year two, the team will receive their 2016 Chevrolet Camaro from General Motors along with other donated components, such as a Bosch Battery Pack, and begin to re-engineer and integrate their proposed hybrid powertrain into the vehicle.
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Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering 380 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students. For more information about engineering at Wayne State University, visit engineering.wayne.edu.