Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Members of Mississippi State's Challenge X team are back at the university after completing a road trip to California to help promote fuel-efficient vehicles with reduced environmental impacts.
After winning earlier this year the national Challenge X competition organized by General Motors and the U.S. Department of Energy and organized by Argonne National Laboratory, the five-member student team joined with counterparts from 16 other universities to promote more environmentally protective vehicles.
In addition to taking first in the overall competition and tops in 10 individual categories, MSU's entry boasts a fuel efficiency of about 32 miles per gallon, and close to sports car level acceleration.
Technically speaking, the "through-the-road parallel hybrid electric" vehicle features a 1.9 GM direct injection turbo diesel engine fueled by B20 biodiesel. It beat all the others because the students succeeded in increasing its fuel economy by 48 percent, compared to the original design.
While in the Golden State, Matt Young of Meridian and other team members shared with numerous car enthusiasts various details of the 2005 Chevrolet Equinox crossover sports utility vehicle they re-engineered to win the three-year competition.
Young, a graduate student in electrical engineering, said the MSU group spent time with late-night television show host Jay Leno, a well-known motorcycle and car collector.
"He asked us what we did different compared to others," Young said. "We also discussed how to make this more mainstream."
In addition to vehicle enthusiasts, the competition provided the MSU students with numerous opportunities to network with top automotive executives and other potential employers. Among those opportunities was the Society of Automotive Engineer's Electric Vehicle Symposium attended by experts in the field from around the world.
Young plans to work in the auto industry after graduation, either in research or design. He said the many learning experiences provided by Mississippi State's Bagley College of Engineering and the university's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems will be of considerable benefits in his job search.
"I can say I helped work on the No. 1 hybrid vehicle developed at Mississippi State University," he said.
Several other MSU students who learned about hybrid technologies through the Challenge X competition already have jobs in the field. Lauderdale native Christopher Whitt and Columbus native Kyle Crawford, recent graduates of the university's Bagley College of Engineering and the Challenge X team, now work for GM.
For winning top honors, the team received $31,500 in prize money. The amount included $15,000 awarded by the National Science Foundation to electrical and computer engineering professor Marshall Molen for being named the outstanding faculty adviser.
Other Challenge X teams represented the universities of California at Davis, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas at Austin, Tulsa, Waterloo, and Wisconsin-Madison, as well as Michigan Technological, Ohio State, Pennsylvania State, San Diego State, Texas Tech, Akron, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia universities, and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
For more information, contact Amanda McAlpin at 662-312-8672 or www.msuchallengex.org.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.