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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.