Hybrid vehicle team plans spring
break road trip
University Park, Pa. — (news
from Penn
State LIVE) While many Penn State students
will be soaking up sun or otherwise taking it easy during
spring break, three members of the Penn State hybrid vehicle
team will embark on an ambitious 1,200-mile road trip from
Monday to Saturday in their converted hybrid Chevrolet Equinox.
''This is a trip we wanted to do over our spring break,''
said Tim Cleary, a master's student in mechanical engineering,
''to put Penn State Challenge X on the map and outdistance
Penn State from the rest of our competition.''
Above: Penn State President
Graham Spanier test drove the Challenge X competition
vehicle on the University Park campus. Here President
Spanier pauses for a photo opportunity at the Lion
Shrine with Challenge X team members Eric Richardson,
Tim Cleary, and Nate Simmons (left to right). |
Headquartered at the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation
Institute on the University Park campus, the Penn State team
is participating in a four-year competition known as Challenge
X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility, a U.S. Department of
Energy and corporate-sponsored advanced vehicle technology
competition. The challenge is to reengineer a Chevrolet Equinox
into a vehicle that is more fuel efficient and cleaner running
while maintaining the utility for which the vehicle was originally
designed. The final year of Challenge X, to be held in June,
will emphasize added technical refinements to the vehicle
and include a New York to Washington, D.C., road rally. The
Penn State team finished 5th among 17 university teams in
the 2007 competition.
Cleary, along with team members Casey McHenry and Nate Simmons,
will visit several major cities as they drive a regional
loop, including Harrisburg.; Washington, D.C.; Baltimore;
Philadelphia; New York City; Rochester, N.Y.; Buffalo, N.Y.;
Erie and Pittsburgh, before returning to State College.
The trip is their idea of fun, but they're also out to connect
with technical people and garner media visibility. Local
media in the cities the team will visit have been receptive
to the team's inquiries about coverage. ''We will be trying
to get on TV as much as possible in addition to stopping
at all the tourist and historic spots to get some pictures
and videos,'' said Cleary. One of the media contacts expressing
interest in talking to the team is the New York-based television
program, "Good Morning America."
The team also will meet with engineers who are working on
fuel cell test cars at a General Motors plant in Rochester.
''It's great to meet with people with whom we can really
get into the technical details of what we are doing,'' said
Cleary.
The team has made several shorter road trips with the vehicle.
So one might think these budding vehicle scientists might
be relaxing as their date of departure nears. ''We're actually
tearing things apart," said Cleary matter-of-factly
on Thursday. ''Right now the vehicle doesn't move. The plan
is to have everything back together tomorrow and review it
all over the weekend.''
''Basically, our work is never done,'' Cleary added. ''There
are continuous improvements and modifications. For example,
to increase range, we made and put in a larger fuel tank,
but to do that we had to remove the current tank and anything
in the way. We also installed acoustic damping material to
make for a quieter ride, and to do that we needed to remove
the entire interior.''
One thing seems certain. Come Monday morning, this team's
unconventional spring break odyssey will begin.
