Story by: Nick Farrenkopf
During the last weekend of March, the South Dakota School of Mines hosted AIChE’s annual ChemE Car competition, held in the beautiful town of Rapid City, South Dakota. This year, the University of Utah’s ChemE Car club had the lucky opportunity to enter two cars, Myrtle and Ethyl. Myrtle was powered by our ever classic hydrogen fuel cell while Ethyl spent her time rippin’ and roarin’ under an internal combustion engine.
The objective of each competition is to engineer a car so that it carries a set amount of water a set distance (both measurements decided by the judges). The winner is based on how close their car gets to the goal line, with each team taking their best out of two tries. Myrtle had a nice first run, but became a bit overconfident and sped out of bounds on round two. Although Ethyl was the crowd’s favorite, she failed to move due to a miscalculation of her awe-inspiring power.
In the end, Myrtle placed 4th, and will be heading to the national competition in October. In addition, after many grueling school vs. school battles, our ChemE Car team placed 1st in ChemE Jeopardy. Congrats to all the participants for all their dedication and for representing both our department and the University of Utah.
For more pictures from the event, see: http://goo.gl/Y5X6v
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