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CBE Students Compete in Orlando

November 6, 2019

UNM's Chem-E Car will compete with Forty-three teams as they participate in the 2019 Annual Chem-E-Car Competition® in Orlando on November 10 from 12:30 - 4:00 pm EST.

All teams were asked to provide a video spotlighting their car, school, and team. These videos will be played before each competitor's run.

The AIChE Chem-E-Car Competition is sponsored by Chevron.

Here's the backstory of the UNM Chem-E Car!

After a whole year of working on this project, the UNM Chem-E-Car team finally competed in the Chem-E-Car competition with their car, “Al.”

The first part of the competition consisted of a poster competition, where members presented the special features and safety aspects of their car to a panel of judges. If the judges deem this car safe, and the poster has received a score of at least a 70%, the team may proceed to the floor for the actual competition.

The team placed 3rd in the poster competition. The poster can be viewed in the Farris Engineering building next to the back entrance of the student lounge.

According to the official rules outlined by the AIChE website, one of the main objectives of Chem-E-Car is to “design and construct a car that is powered with a chemical energy source that will carry a specified load over a given distance and stop.” The placement is based on the distance the car stops from the given distance, which is defined as the “absolute value of the distance between the front-most part of the car and the finish line.” Each team gets 2 attempts.

The given distance for this competition was 17 meters, while the load was 343 mL of water. Al, powered off of Aluminum-Air “burrito” batteries, stopped 50 cm before the finish line when the Vitamin C Iodine Clock reaction finished. This was the closest that any car had gotten to the line, placing UNM at first! Because of this, Al also qualifies for the 2019 National Chem-E-Car competition next fall in Orlando, FL.

Congratulations to the UNM Chem-E-Car team, Seniors Savannah Cheek and David DeVos, Juniors David Arnot, Rose Lee and Rebecca Tafoya - good luck as they advance to Nationals!