Xenia Daily Gazette
CEDARVILLE — A student engineering team from Cedarville University will compete in the 2016 Shell Eco-marathon in Detroit April 20-22. The team will depart Thursday for the competition — the second year its been held along the streets of the Cobo Center.
The Shell Eco-marathon Americas is an event where college and high school students race ultra-energy-efficient cars. The Cedarville Super Mileage team will race two cars: “Sting” in the Prototype Gasoline category and “Urbie” in the Urban Concept Gasoline category. The prototype category vehicles are smaller vehicles, getting the highest gas mileage with the newest technologies but are not practical street vehicles. The Urban Concept category vehicle is more practical and street legal.
“This international competition challenges the students in many disciplines of engineering we teach at Cedarville,” said Larry Zavodney, senior professor of mechanical engineering. “We design and build ultra-efficient vehicles in order to get extremely high mileage.”
Each year, mechanical, electrical and computer engineering and computer science students team up with students from various other majors to manage the cars’ technologies. Zavodney said they have to learn, “basic machining and composite fabrication skills” to contribute to the team. This provides many new skills for the students, including application experience, the opportunity to compete and networking with industry professionals.
Leading up to the competition, students seek ways to solve current and future energy challenges.
