Chem-E-Car competitions are held annually by AIChE at the regional and national student conferences. The competition challenges students to design and build a small car powered by some form of chemical energy, capable of transporting a given load over a certain distance. The success of a team is judged on the accuracy of the distance travelled by the car. What makes this competition especially interesting is that the weight of the load and the distance to be traveled is unknown to the competitors until shortly before the competition. Check out the video below which explains Chem-E-Car and shows off some of the cool cars from the 2012 National Competition!

This year, the University of Rochester is aiming to compete in Chem-E-Car for the second time!  Check out our first competition story that was featured in the ChemE department website as well as in the university site.

Joining Chem-E-Car is a great way for students to engage in a fun, hands-on, collaborative engineering project, while learning skills that are integral to success in the engineering profession. Apart from working in teams and applying engineering principles, participants learn to design and build projects with a budget, perform lab tests, and analyze data. Perhaps even more exciting, competing at the regional and national levels provides students a chance to travel with their teammates, and see some of the creative cars built by young engineers from other schools.

UR AIChE is starting a Chem-E-Car Team in the Fall of 2015 for interested chemical engineering students. The goal of the team will be to design and build a car for the Northeast Regional Competition in the Spring of 2016. To find out more about our Chem-E-Car Team and how you can join, contact our Chem-E-Car Chair. Also, be sure to check out the AIChE webpage for Chem-E-Car!