Challenge X pushes it to the limit

During the 2004 - 2005 school year, Rose-Hulman became one of seventeen schools to participate in the Challenge X project. According to the Challenge X website, it is a three year project that involves modifying a Chevy Equinox to “minimize energy consumption, emissions, and greenhouse gases while maintaining or exceeding the vehicle’s utility and performance.” One of the stipulations is that the vehicle must become a hybrid. Rose’s Equinox runs on electricity and bio-diesel. Most students on the project come from the ME and ECE departments, though a few CSSE and Chemistry students have also on the team.

Senior mechanical engineer Tom Martin became involved in the project as a freshman, when he did research on fuel cell technology for the proposal.

At the beginning of June this past summer, sixteen students and both Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering Marc Herniter, and Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Zachariah Chambers, the RHIT Challenge X advisors, went to Phoenix for two weeks.

Martin mentioned a few challenges the team had to overcome. “First, our vehicle had to pass safety inspections so for the first several days we were frantically trying to correct any safety issues that the event coordinators saw with our vehicle. This included adding a lot of lock washers, labeling wires and finding a new location for our fuel tank. We finally had to design a custom fuel tank that GM technicians helped us build and install.”

Once the team passed inspection, the team competed in five qualifying tests involving braking, maneuverability, acceleration, high-speed stability, and traction control. After the team finished the prequalifying events, they participated in the major events, which included on-road fuel economy, trailer towing, emissions, and drive quality. Though the team competed in all the events, they failed to finish several because of issues such as overheating or low-voltage system failure. On the day Rose did the qualifying events, it was about 115 degrees outside, and the road was 130 degrees.

At the end of the event, Chambers and Herniter won the $15000 Outstanding Incoming Faculty Advisor award. Junior mechanical engineer Jama Johnson won an Outstanding Women in Engineering award.

Since the event, the team got a new transmission. Before, they had one that they had made was a little big. “This one was designed by a company, it’s not something we did ourselves,” explained Herniter. The transmission has both motors integrated together. “We have a new motor controller, it’ll be a new control scheme.” But all decisions made by the team are well thought out, “We do all kinds of real-time programming and modeling, all sorts of simulations before doing the real thing,” Herniter detailed.

Phoenix isn’t the only place team members have gone recently. Kristina Lawyer, a junior mechanical engineer, went to Michigan. “My last trip was to Detroit, MI to the Ford Innovation Center and an Automotive Roundtable,” said Lawyer. “We talked to a bunch of automotive industry people at the roundtable, acquired some sponsorship monies, toured the Ford Innovation Center, talked with some Ford engineers, went to dinner with said engineers, and we all got to drive the new Ford Hybrid Escape.”

The Challenge X team faces many challenges, not withstanding standard Rose-Hulman coursework. “Time is the team’s greatest enemy,” said Martin. “We had a major driveshaft failure only days before the vehicle was supposed to ship to competition in Phoenix. Work on the vehicle was almost continuous for the 3 days prior to shipment.” Martin is the team leader of Rear Suspension. Time isn’t the only thing working against the Engineer Team. Lawyer, who works on the emissions team, has other concerns. “The biggest challenge we have had is simply finding the materials we need to meet our competition requirements.”

This weekend, the team plans to have their car on display with the new transmission, which was donated by Allison Transmissions. The team has borrowed a 5 hp pull-start diesel motor that will be used to start the input shaft.