This year's winner: Texas A&M completes a test run at Dartmouth's Formula Hybrid Competition. See more photos.
Dartmouth's 5th annual Formula Hybrid Competition took place last week at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway with 25 teams (out of 33 registered) competing. Founded and run by Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, the competition features high-performance hybrid and electric race cars built by teams of undergraduate and graduate engineering students.
"Despite the difficulties many teams had getting through tech inspections this year," said Doug Fraser, director of the competition, "the enthusiasm, camaraderie, and love of learning through this experience was as strong as ever."
In response to those difficulties, Formula Hybrid will be adding a new requirement for 2012: All teams must perform their own technical inspections a minimum of two weeks before the competition. Added Fraser, "All the judges and officials that I've spoken to have agreed that had this policy been in place this year, the outcome would have been very different."
Day one of the competition was devoted to electrical and mechanical technical inspections which continued into day two, overlapping with the design and marketing presentation events. Day three featured the acceleration runs, the autocross competition, and the design finals. And day four held the endurance event followed by the awards ceremony.
A summary of this year's results is below, and a PDF of the final scores is available on the Formula Hybrid website.
Lund University Racing, hailing from Sweden, undergoes electrical technical inspection
Teams in attendance
Brigham Young University
California State Polytechnic University - Pomona
California Polytechnic State University - SLO
Colorado State University
Dartmouth College
Drexel University
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Florida A&M University/Florida State University FAMU-FSU
Illinois Institute of Technology
Lawrence Technological University
Lund University
McGill University
Milwaukee School of Engineering
New Hampshire Technical Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
San Jose State University
Texas A&M University
University of California - Davis
University of Houston
University of Idaho
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Kansas
University of Manitoba
University of Vermont
Yale University
The Dartmouth Formula Racing team placed 2nd in the design finals.
2011 winners
1st Overall:Texas A&M University
2nd Overall:Brigham Young University
3rd Overall:Lund University (Sweden)
4th Overall:University of California–Davis
5th Overall:Dartmouth College
6th Overall:McGill University (Canada)
Individual event winners & awards
Design:Lund University
Presentation:Brigham Young University
Acceleration–electric only:Texas A&M U.
Acceleration–unrestricted:Texas A&M U.
Autocross:Texas A&M U.
Endurance:Lund University
Chrysler Best Hybrid System Engineering Award:Dartmouth College
GM Best Engineered Hybrid Systems Award: 1st Prize ($2500)–Texas A&M U.; 2nd Prize ($1500)–Milwaukee School of Engineering; 3rd Prize ($500)–University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
IEEE Engineering the Future Award:Lund University
"I want to thank all our sponsors," said Wynne Washburn, Deputy Director of Formula Hybrid, "Their investment not only supports the event and the students working on hybrid technology innovation but also raises the public profile of Formula Hybrid which helps both the competition and the individual teams as well."
Dartmouth modeled its event after the Formula SAE® competition in which Dartmouth engineering students have competed for over 10 years. The main difference in the Formula Hybrid competition is that teams need to consider the additional factors of fuel efficiency and materials sustainability in the construction of their car. Like Formula SAE®, students must also consider the design, acceleration, handling, and endurance of their vehicle and abide by a long list of rules.
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