AIChE Chem-E Car competition highlights student innovation
The Miami University chapter of AIChE placed 7th at the Chem-E Regional Competition.
AIChE Chem-E Car competition highlights student innovation
Miami University recently had a team of students compete in the regional American Institute of Chemical Engineers( AIChE) Chem-E Car Competition at Michigan State University. This competition challenges students to create a car powered by a chemical energy source that will run a specific distance and stop. This is the fourth competition that a team from the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) has competed in, and this year they placed 7th. The team consists of Emily Reed, Allen Ni, Eva Goorskey, and Kyle MacMillan.
The car runs on a hydrogen power cell as it has done in the past, but this year the chemical reaction was changed due to the competition rule book. Teams are encouraged to branch out on designs and cannot repeat the same car multiple competitions in a row. To comply with this rule, it is a reaction between sodium hydroxide and aluminum which powers the team's newest car, produced by using drain cleaner and aluminum foil.
Another change that was made was the introduction of purge, in which a reaction to create carbon dioxide is completed, and then used to flush out any oxygen produced in the sodium hydroxide and aluminum reaction. This flush will create less of an ignition risk, increasing the safety. The team also rebuilt the car itself using 3-D printers, as the previous car's exterior had been around since 2016.
Before the competition, Kyle spent time recruiting for AIChE to bring in new members. He did this by speaking in front of classrooms and talking to faculty and professors about his experience with the organization. “I guess the best thing to say about the Chem-E Car Competition is, yes, it teaches you a lot of engineering principles, but it's also fun. It's a very different experience from lab work and homework assignments that are typically more idealistic, whereas now you're actually doing something. Now you're actually getting in the lab, working on something, and it's been a rather fun experience,” said Kyle.
The competition gives students the opportunity to apply skills learned both inside and outside the classroom. “The overall competition, especially with these types of settings, they really are good when it comes to networking and understanding a lot of basic engineering principles. For instance, we have an entire course dedicated to processing, and there's obviously a lot of things that can go wrong if you have some big chemical processor, even if you're doing something in a lab," said Kyle. "These competitions are nice because they give students an idea of things that could go wrong, things that you don't really want to talk about much in your normal classroom.”
“I would say that I've grown fairly substantially over the course of this project," he added. "It started out just being something that sounds cool that I could put on a resume. But now being able to go to these events - not something I thought I would ever do - has made this a very valuable experience.”
With the growing popularity of the Chem-E Car competition, Miami University AIChE has a chance to participate in an additional competition. This is the Chem-E Cube competition where students are tasked with building a chemical plant within the confines of a box. If these competitions interest you, join AIChE on the Hub!
