Michigan Tech's Chem-E car team rode to its best finish ever in national competition, taking
the silver at the AIChE finals held Nov. 16 in San Francisco.

The MTU team finished second among 25 top teams from across the U.S.

"It was my 30th birthday," said the group's advisor, Assistant Professor Jason Keith
(Chemical Engineering). "It was a nice present."

Competitors built shoe-box-sized model cars powered by chemical reactions--no Energizer
batteries allowed. The goal was to make the car travel a specific distance, stopping as
close to the finish line as possible.

The MTU team's car is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell and has a custom machined copper
body to represent the Copper Country.

The team also received an award for most consistent performance, with two runs of almost
exactly the same length. "They were the only school in the competition to do that," Keith
said. "They worked pretty hard trying to perfect their design. You never know what will
happen. They tested in the building under certain conditions, but then there was this
ballroom with the bumpy floors."

After taking ninth place in the 2001 competition, the team wanted to replace their original
Tupperware-framed, battery-powered car with something new. They became one of the first
groups to use hydrogen fuel cells in the Chem-E Car competition.

They also wanted to involve students in other disciplines.

This led to the creation of the Fuel Cells and Alternative Fuels Enterprise, which is
sponsored by the United States Army, Tank Automotive and Armaments Command. In
addition to working on the Chem-E car, the Enterprise is developing a "Mule." The ground
vehicle may weigh up to a ton and will include a fuel cell to provide at least 20 minutes of
silent propulsion. For more information, visit Alternative Fuels Enterprise web site.

Students who represented Michigan Tech at the conference were Kevin Lamkin (head of
the Chem-E car team), Jeremiah White, Lemayian C. Kimojino, James Eickhoff, Adetoun
Ayorinde, Nicholas Ballor, Clint Wininger, Mike Scudder, Hugh Simmonds, Jonathan
Jelsma, Abram Walters, Andrew Pressler, Matthew Guyton, Rachel Smith and Jesten Neill.
Other MTU students who worked on the design and construction of the car were Kenneth
Koers and Jeremiah McConnell.

The Chem-E team's sponsors included BASF, USG, the Michigan Tech Fund's Parents'
Fund, the Department of Chemical Engineering, and the AIChE MTU chapter. The first
place team was from the University of Dayton.

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