Year Two First Place Winners, Penn State EcoCAR 2 Team, with awards in hand

The whole team is definitely excited and more than grateful to have won first place this year. The two weeks in Yuma, Az. and San Diego, Ca. were long and tiring, but extremely rewarding. From the endless hours at the General Motors Proving Grounds to the long nights practicing presentations, it feels great to have achieved so much.

The communications team won first place for the competition’s overall Best Communications Program, as well as Best Communications Plan and Best Media Report. The communications team also won third place for Best Clean Cities Collaboration and dSPACE embedded success video award.

The team’s Malibu won many dynamic testing events including: Best 0-60 and 50-70, Best Braking 60-0, Fastest Autocross, Best AVL Drive Quality and Best Dynamic Consumer Acceptability. The team also received an award from their General Motors Pit Coordinator, Isaac Garcia, poking fun at “a bolt coming loose” during testing.

The team is ready to go for Year Three already! With a majority of our team members being recent graduates, we are excited to start building another outstanding team. The remaining undergraduate team members want to wish all of our graduates the best of luck in their careers ahead of them.

At this time, the team would also like to thank everyone that has followed our progress throughout the competition, and those who will continue to do so. We also want to thank all of our mentors who assisted in making our Malibu a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

With that being said—Bring it on Year Three!

Right after Education Day, Deans from multiple universities drove our Malibu in the University Ride and Drive event.  We were excited to receive positive feedback about our vehicle after the drive.

Today we had our Electrical, Mechanical and Communications team presentations. Our electrical team presented about how high voltage and low voltage components work together in the vehicle. Our mechanical team also presented about the integration of vehicle components, and our communications team highlighted eight of the thirty outreach events held throughout Year Two.

Tonight our team will attend the sponsor social event to thank all the companies who have supported EcoCAR 2 and our team.

The controls and business teams will present tomorrow. We are excited to see how well the rest of our team does in presentations. Two days left until Year Two Final Competition Awards!

P.S. Shout out to Tony’s mom!

The Corvette with a lucky student passenger before running the Autocross event

In the afternoon we passed the final dynamic event, gradeability, in which our vehicle must drive 20 minutes with a trailer connected to the back creating resistance, simulating going up a hill.

Two presentations will be done tomorrow, Static Consumer Acceptability and Vehicle Design Review. We will present the special features of our vehicle that make it appealing to the average consumer and recapping our final vehicle design in comparison to what we protected for the year.

Tomorrow is our last day at the General Motors Proving Grounds. We are sad to leave Yuma, Az., but excited to get to San Diego to participate in the next round of Year Two Competition. Our whole team is grateful for the opportunity to work at the General Motors facility and with their skilled employees.

As our team has said many times, “We could not have done it without Isaac!”

Co-team leader Chris Golecki analyzing data from a test run

Tonight we have the Autocross event, where our Malibu will take on three more scored events and be driven by a few team members on the professional GM track. We will also get to enjoy a BBQ dinner with the rest of the competition teams!

In other news, we were excited to see our co-team leader, Chris Golecki, pictured in the Yuma Sun along with our vehicle.

Tomorrow is one of the last days we can pass dynamic events, so every second counts. We can’t wait to see how well our Malibu performs!

Our vehicle during maximum lateral g test

Since a few changes were made to our vehicle, we went through the on-road safety evaluation and maximum lateral acceleration tests again. Immediately after, we drove to the straightaway track, and the electrical team leader Eric Skibba drove the Malibu for the acceleration and braking tests. Thanks to his skilled driving, our vehicle accelerated from 0-60 in 12.8 seconds and for the highway passing test went from 50-70 in 7.1 seconds.

In preparation for additional dynamic testing later today and tomorrow, we’re charging up the battery pack in our pit. Excited to see what comes next!

Our vehicle up on the lift in our pit

After a much-needed cup of coffee for everyone on our team, we hit the ground running working on our vehicle this morning on day three of Year Two Competition. Casey Dietrich, our controls team leader worked his magic to ensure the all the controls in our vehicle were working properly this morning.

Local Yuma, Az. media visited the General Motors Proving Ground today as well. Many reporters and photographers were exploring the garage and took pictures of the teams and their vehicles. Our communications manager Taylor Kidd and electrical team member Tony Burt were interviewed by the Arizona Edition of National Public Radio about Penn State’s progress. Hopefully they were able to capture our vehicle and team at their greatest!

This afternoon our vehicle passed the first part of dynamic testing: on-road safety evaluation and maximum lateral acceleration. This was the first time our team saw the vehicle driving with the beautiful Arizona desert in the background.

Our vehicle is no longer clean and white, but instead covered in dirt—a welcome sign of progress!

PSU engineers right before the safety tech inspection

While the engineers were hard at work on our vehicle, our communications team traveled to Rancho Viejo Elementary School for Outreach Day. Taylor and Cheyenne, along with the other universities’ communications teams, gave a presentation about EcoCAR 2 and living sustainably to 4th, 5th and 6th graders. Each presentation ended with an activity, and lots of prizes were handed out to the students. There was definitely a lot of energy in classroom!

The whole team, especially the engineers, were more than excited to hear our vehicle passed safety tech inspection! Our team was the first to do so in the competition. Also, our vehicle was driven for the first time in Yuma!

But, it wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have our Pit Coordinator Issac Garcia.

“We really could not have done it without Issac,” said Sam Foran. “He’s the man!”

Despite the 106-degree weather today, we’re keeping our cool. Bring it on day three!

Welcome sign at our hotel in Yuma, Az.

Yesterday our team flew from Harrisburg, Pa. to San Diego, Ca. then made a three hour drive to the middle of the desert in Yuma, Az. After only a few minor setbacks, which included one broken down car and half the team almost missing the first flight, the team managed to arrive safely at Year Two Final Competition.

Last night we enjoyed a fun-filled Welcome Night event.  We were able to unwind with a few rounds of go-kart races and intense rock climbing competitions. The fun continued with the premiere of the skit videos–each with its own music video theme–created by the 15 teams in the competition. After the skit videos, organizers presented the pre-competition awards for EcoCAR 2 deliverables that have been judged throughout Year Two. We’re happy to report that the communications team received awards for the Best Communications Plan and Best Media Report!

Day One at the General Motors Proving Grounds started out bright and early! The engineers are currently working with Paul Shoytush, our GM mentor to prepare for the vehicle safety inspection. Issac, a GM employee, is also assisting us by providing access to GM’s tools while we are guests at their garage.

If you want to follow the schedule for our team at Year Two Competition, download the brand new EcoCAR 2 app! Just search for “EcoCAR” in the App store to get access to the free app.

Tim Reddington (second from right) in Michigan for the UVDC competition in 1972

When Boy Scout Troop 83 recently visited PSU AVT’s garage, a grandfather of one of the students was particularly interested in the EcoCAR 2 competition—and for good reason. He used to be on Penn State’s Urban Vehicle Design Competition (UVDC) team in 1972.

Tim Reddington, a PSU electrical engineering graduate, explained that UVDC challenged 65 schools across U.S. and Canada to design a compact, utilitarian, low cost vehicle that could be used by everyday people in urban settings, all while reducing the vehicle’s environmental impact.

Reddington and his teammates built their little car—affectionately nicknamed “Uv Duck” from the initials of the competition and the fact that the doors opened up instead of out, so it resembled a duck about to take flight— for driving around town, rather than long cross-country travel. The two-seater had a 4-cylinder conventional internal combustion engine.  The team tested its performance at General Motors’ Proving Grounds in Milford, Mich. They placed tenth and received a special crash test award thanks to its high-performing hydraulically cushioned bumper.

The vehicle Pennn State students designed and built for the UVDC

Dr. Palladino, Dean of Engineering at the time, said he had never seen a group of students work with more enthusiasm or accomplish more in a given length of time than the UVDC team.

Seeing the engineers crowded around the Malibu in the garage reminded Reddington of his days working on UVDC, gaining hands-on experience just as the students are doing today in EcoCAR 2.

More than 40 years later, Penn State is still participating in advanced vehicle technology competitions, thanks to the group of hard-working, dedicated student engineers in EcoCAR 2. Although the competition has changed, one thing has stood the test of time: the drive and motivation of Penn Staters to improve our world with innovative engineering.

By Taylor Kidd

I found it interesting because what we as the EcoCAR 2 team spend three long years slaving away at, can simply be done with an all-exclusive “kit”. This kit, comprised of a battery pack, controller for the trunk and wheels equipped with brushless DC electric motors, is all one needs to partake in this EV conversion.

The kit was created by Middle Tennessee State University, and to prove its success, they demonstrated the conversion on a 1994 Honda Accord Wagon. Due to the relatively high prices of electric and hybrid vehicles, the team created the kit for those who still wish to drive such vehicles, while reducing the price as much as possible.

The team is approaching companies who will possibly invest and further contribute this both ecological and economical innovation. If this new form of hybrid-technology takes off, almost any vehicle can be converted to an inexpensive plug-in. This seems like such an advancement in the automotive industry, since a big reason why people refrain from buying hybrid and electric vehicles is because they can be costly.

It’s as if anyone can participate in their very own EcoCAR 2 competition right at home. It is so exciting to see what the future holds for DIY-ers in the automotive industry.

By Andie Ashbaugh