Over the past decade, one in four faculty members of the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in Hanover has started a company based on his or her scientific work. The school wants its engineering students to have similar entrepreneurship success. One way it encourages that is through the Formula Hybrid competition at NH Motor Speedway in Loudon. In its seventh year, the international competition challenges teams of students to build formula cars (single seat, open cockpit race cars) that combine advancements in drive trains (be it electric motors or hybrid models) with speed and agility.
Thayer Professor Doug Fraser, called “the father of the competition” by colleagues, has overheard students claim they go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3 to 4 seconds but he “suspects” there might be some youthful stretching of the facts going on.
Fraser says the four-day competition is different because it focuses on energy conservation and not just building a race car. The competition also underscores what turns an engineer into a successful entrepreneur. Teams of students spend a year or more designing and building the cars, figuring out everything from prototypes to manufacturing and cost estimation to marketing and fund raising. Cars cost $20,000 or more to build. “It’s important that we get mechanical engineers and electrical engineers and other engineers to speak to each other. They usually don’t,” Fraser says of the importance of interdisciplinary projects.
Dartmouth Formula Racing, the college’s race club, has a car powered by an electric motor to compete against students from 19 schools across the country as well as Canada and India. Design judges include executives from Ford, GMC and Chrysler. The second day of the competition found high school students speaking with team members about the cars, which are tested for electrical and mechanical safety before they hit the race course. Cars then take part in three phases of competition: acceleration, a 22-kilometer endurance course and an autocross course. Doug Van Citters, chief engineering examiner for the competition and a Thayer professor, tried to turn the high school students’ attention away from the cars to engineering by explaining how engineering is mart and science at work.
Back at Dartmouth’s car bay, students put the final touches on their electric car, and attach the side panels emblazoned with the school’s name. One team member was sent to Radio Shack for a needed part. Team Captain Darren Reis is a controls engineer looking to go into prosthetics and is headed to the University of California at Los Angeles next year for a master’s program. While he doesn’t see car building in his future, he says the experience is invaluable. Reis worked on the car for his senior project and was thrilled it passed electrical inspection. “This is not the most nimble car. It’s a tank, but because it is electric, it’s fun to drive and it will go fast,” he says. “Being an engineering student and working on a Formula Hybrid car gives me a practical opportunity to learn things I would never learn in the classroom.”
For more information, visit www.formula-hybrid.org.
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