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Students compete in EcoCAR Challenge
Going Green
Going Green: Students compete in EcoCAR Challenge
Engineering students from 17 universities in the U.S. and Canada are in the three-year EcoCar challenge to build a more fuel-efficient car. Among those students is Albany area native Ryan Meisert, a PhD candidate at Georgia Tech.
“We start the first year off designing the vehicle with very rigorous models and simulations trying to predict across the board what our vehicle will do. Then at the end of the first year we actually get that vehicle and then we have to do what we said we would. In the second and third years we actually test the vehicle at the proving grounds,” said Ryan Meisert, Burnt Hills, N.Y.
Their EcoCAR challenge is designing advanced architecture for a 2009 Saturn Vue to reduce petroleum use and increase fuel efficiency. Ryan's Georgia Tech team is building an E85 two-mode hybrid electric vehicle.
“Well, we really hope to make a vehicle that is showroom quality, that doesn't lack in any area. We're trying to cover all our bases and really have something that people on our team and other people would want to buy,” said Meisert.
Ryan admitted there is some pressure going into the year one-competition finals staged in Toronto.
“I really find it very empowering, you kind of go through school, you get all these tools. You kind of drive down the street and say why don't they do this on a car or I would do this if I had the job so now you've got to back up what you say. You really have to put things together and at the end there's no talking there's actually hard numbers measuring how well you did for the whole year,” said Meisert.
The overall winner of year one was the team from Ohio State University.
