Contact: Phil Hearn
Congressman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Mississippi State President Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong are expected to be on hand at approximately 11:30 a.m. Saturday [May 13] to test-drive a hybrid car developed by a team of engineering majors.
It's all a part of "Ride-and-Drive" activities scheduled 10 a.m.-2 p.m. in the parking lot of the university's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems. Visitors attending the public event also will be invited to test-drive the novel vehicle.
The center is located in the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park, situated just across Highway 182 immediately north of the Starkville campus.
Members of Mississippi State's Challenge X team will welcome visitors and answer questions about their ongoing redesign of a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox Sport Utility Vehicle. They are working to have the diesel-electric hybrid vehicle achieve as much as 38 miles-per-gallon when completed.
Tours of the state-of-the-art CAVS facility also will be conducted during the day. The research center is directed by Rand German.
About 10 members of the MSU team will leave May 30 for Mesa, Ariz. They are participants in the second year of the three-year National Challenge X competition sponsored by General Motors as part of an effort to generate new ideas on the future design of automobiles and other vehicles.
The MSU team is among 17 college and university groups from the U.S. and Canada competing. CAVS research scientist Marshall Molen, a noted authority in the field of power electronics, is team adviser.
(Rep. Wicker will be on campus Saturday to serve as featured speaker for the 9:30 a.m. commencement program in Humphrey Coliseum. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., will address the second graduation ceremony, which begins at 2:30 p.m.)
For more information about the Saturday event or the Challenge X competition, contact Amanda McAlpin at (662) 325-5562 or amcalpin@cavs.msstate.edu.