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Future Chemical Engineers Race For Finish Line
Putting the pedal to the metal, two University of Houston chemical engineering
students tested their mettle with the creation of a fuel-cell-driven car in
the national Chem-E-Car competition. The pair placed 13th among nearly 40 teams
from
across the country.
Testing their classroom knowledge by building shoebox-sized cars powered
by chemical reactions, Mansour AbdulBaki and Adrian Morales, senior chemical
engineering
students and members of UH’s student chapter of the American Institute
of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), became the first-ever UH students to participate
at the national level. After capturing a second-place finish at the regional
competition during the Spring 04 semester, AbdulBaki and Morales were pleased
with their national debut at the sixth annual competition this fall in Austin.
Since no one from UH had ever participated before, the students agreed that
they had to initiate the process themselves, along with financial sponsorship
from
the UH AIChE student chapter.
uccessfully applying their knowledge to construct
a winning racecar that took the better part of a year to build, the students
were required to construct a vehicle that carried a predetermined weight a
particular distance before stopping. AbdulBaki and Morales’s miniature
car obtained its energy from a fuel cell reaction, making it more environmentally
friendly.
“We started off using a chemical battery, but it performed poorly and we
eventually moved to the idea of a fuel-cell-powered car,” said Morales,
current vice president of the UH chapter of AIChE.
The competition requires students to use controlled chemical reactions in
designing and operating shoebox-sized cars. Making things more challenging,
the students
are given the payload and distance that their vehicles must carry and travel
only an hour before the race begins. In this case, their racecar needed to
transport 300 milliliters of water 75 feet. Students also include a poster
presentation
demonstrating their understanding of the chemical reactions used and their
attention to safety. Facing new obstacles to overcome and generating new ideas
proves challenging,
but the competitors have an invaluable opportunity to apply ideas learned from
coursework.
“We are proud to have achieved our goals,” said AbdulBaki, former
president and current Web master of UH’s AIChE. “We wanted to earn
recognition for UH and our highly ranked, but relatively underexposed, Department
of Chemical Engineering and to start a tradition of competition and achievement
in our department and the UH AIChE chapter.
The next round of competitions is scheduled to begin in March and April for
all nine regions throughout the nation, and the upcoming generation of UH chemical
engineering students has already begun design preparations for next year’s
competition with a new team currently being formed.
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