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Cornell Chemical Engineering "chemical car" team wins national championship!

0 inches. That's the distance the Cornell Chemical Engineering team's car stopped from the finish line this past Sunday afternoon, scoring a first place finish and earning the Cornell team their first national championship. This is the first time that a "chemical car" has stopped exactly on the finish line in the AIChE national car competition's ten-year history.  In this annual event, organized by Chemical Engineering's professional society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, a chemically-powered car is required to run for a maximum of two minutes and stop on its own. The distance of 60 feet and weight load of 250 milliliters of water were announced just one hour before the competition, ensuring that the winning team would have built a highly versatile car. The goal for each of the 34 cars in the competition was to stop as close to the finish line as possible.

The Cornell team of 18 undergraduates, representing several engineering majors, attributes their success to hard work, dedication, and ingenuity. At the competition, the team was led by Brian Weitzner '09 (captain), Michael Klees '09, Kathryn Leotta '09, Dhruv Doshi '10, John Easson '10, Parry Grewal '10, Shihao Koh '10, and Adrian Rami '10.

A teddy bear wearing a Cornell t-shirt rode above the front wheel. During the car's slow progress, the announcer quipped, "[the bear is] getting lots of time to look at the scenery," and with a bit of prescience, continued "remember, it's not the speed of the car, it's the precision of the car." Two hydrogen fuel cells powered a motor built out of Lego blocks that slowly drove the front wheel of the car. Mechanical and electronic timing devices are prohibited as stopping mechanisms. Instead, the Cornell team used a well-calibrated chemical reaction to darken a solution and block light from reaching a photosensor circuit. The precision of the system triggered their car to stop on the finish line.

This victory is the culmination of the team's perseverance: in spring 2007, their goal was simply to have a car that moved—and it moved merely 9 inches at the 2007 Regional Competition. That was enough to score a 3rd place finish and send the team to the national competition, where they placed 11th of 33 in Salt Lake City last November. By last fall's nationals, the car could move, but the stopping mechanism needed work. In the spring Regional Competition in 2008, the stopping mechanism failed. Luckily, their 3rd place finish was just enough for entry to the National Competition in Phildelphia. With this first place finish, the team will now move on to the international ChemE car competition in Montreal in August 2009.

The ChemE Car Team would like to thank Associate Dean David Gries, Assistant Dean Betsy East, the Bartels Family and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering for their continued support of the team.