Advisor to automotive competition team wins college award

The teams

The Clean Snowmobile Challenge is the newest collegiate design competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). In it, teams re-engineer an existing snowmobile to reduce noise and emissions while maintaining or improving performance. In just its third year of existence, the UW-Madison Clean Snowmobile Team beat 17 others to win the 2004 national championship. Key to the students' success, says Bower, was their development of an innovative gas-electric engine — the first hybrid engine ever to appear in the challenge. In the 2005 competition, the team placed third overall while also earning an award for the lowest emissions.

The Society of Automotive Engineers' (SAE) longest running automotive competition, SAE Mini-Baja requires engineering students to design and build an off-road vehicle that will survive the punishment of rough terrain and water. Three regional competitions — called East, Midwest and West — are held each year. This year's West event featured a grueling 100-mile endurance race in the Arizona desert in honor of SAE's 100th anniversary. Out of more than 130 teams registered to compete, UW-Madison placed fourth overall and fourth in the endurance event. The team won national championships in 2000 and 2001.

Team Paradigm is the UW-Madison student group that builds hybrid electric vehicles. Since 1992 the team has competed in a series of multi-year competitions sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and others. In the FutureCar Challenge, which began in 1995, the team won two national championships with a redesigned car called the Aluminum Cow. In the five-year FutureTruck competition that followed, the team earned three consecutive national titles (2002-2004) with a hybrid Ford Explorer. The first year of the latest challenge, called Challenge X, focused on modeling and simulation. At the competition held this June, the students placed 10th. They now move to the next round, which involves modifying a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox. In preparation, this year the team renovated a General Motors EV1 — the first true electric vehicle ever built by a manufacturer.

The Formula SAE competition tasks engineering students with designing, building, marketing and racing a small, formula-style racing vehicle. An annual competition is held each year in which approximately 120 teams from colleges and universities throughout the world participate. The UW-Madison Formula Team consistently places in the top 10 in competition, with second place finishes in 2000 and 2002. At this year's competition in Pontiac, Michigan, the team took third place.