Movers & Shakers
LATITUDE
GETTING TO THE TRACK ON TIME Two members of the U of A EcoCar team move their entry along a somewhat stressful path to glory, although you would never know it by their faces. From left are Erin Whitby, driver, and Carter Trautmann, project manager. -photo by Joe Buglewicz/AP Images for Shell
SPEED BUMPS ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS: AN ECOCAR PERSEVERES Nothing brings a team together like a little crisis management. In April, students from the University of Alberta overcame a slew of misfortunes to clinch the top prize in the Shell Eco-marathon Americas competition. The team’s first test demonstrated that Sofie, their prototype fuel cell car, was much too slow. So they added air to the tires and made other minor modifications. The next three test runs were no less frustrating: Sofie was still too slow, one of her runs was rained out, and she had steering problems. The team worked through the night to condition the fuel cell and modify the engine. “The whole team was amazing,” says Carter Trautmann , project manager for the U of A EcoCar Team, in a U of A story. “We had so many technical issues, and people were consistently excited to get in there and see what they could do. It was amazing to see.” And the sleepless night in Sonoma, Calif., was not for naught: the team took first place in the hydrogen prototype division, which came with a $5,600 prize, and also received the Most Innovative Hydrogen Newcomer Award.
Sofie, built in 2017 for an earlier EcoCar team, has always been a handful. “That’s part of why this win was a particular boost for the team: to have a car running for that long and always feeling like it was underperforming,” says Mr. Trautmann, a university student member of APEGA. For next year, the team has its sights on success in the urban concept division, which involves cars that look more like what you’d see on the street. The group already has a design and is in the development stage, using hydrogen fuel cells to maximize the car’s fuel efficiency. Mr. Trautmann notes that while this type of energy source has been proven to be a cleaner way to power vehicles, it’s still not commonly used commercially. But if he had his way, this would change. “If a group of university students who aren’t done their degrees yet can build a functional, award- winning vehicle this way, then clearly it’s viable in the commercial space.” Success isn’t supposed to be easy, and the U of A team is very aware of that. “We are one of the only—if not the only—teams that design and build our own electrical and control systems for our fuel cell stack,” says Elizabeth Gierl , a university student member of APEGA. Adds Mr. Trautmann, “If we took the easiest, shortest path, we’d be reducing opportunities to learn.”
24 | PEG SUMMER 2019
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