Ohio State is known as a football school, but also produces topflight engineers. Over the Memorial Day weekend, it defeated 15 other schools and was crowned winners of Year 2 of the EcoCAR 3 — Advanced Technology Competition.
Virginia Tech and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University finished second and third.
The competition, based in San Diego, features university engineer teams competing to redesign and reduce the environmental impact of a 2016 Chevrolet Camaro, while still maintaining the performance level that made it into one of America's most iconic cars. It is a four-year competition.
The the victors, the spoils.
Ohio State also won Year 1 of the competition, as well as top prize in the three-year EcoCAR2 competition in 2014 to create a more efficient Chevrolet Malibu.
"This year's overall winner, Ohio State, demonstrated all-around excellence by using the research and data gathered in the previous year and successfully applying it during Year Two of the vehicle development process for their Series Parallel PHEV 2016 Chevrolet Camaro," said Kristen Wahl, director of the Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions at Argonne National Laboratory. "Most impressively, the OSU team's Camaro was the first to meet all safety protocols even though they only took possession of the vehicle a few months ago."
For their efforts, the Buckeyes earned $10,000 and a Year 2 trophy. It finished first place in 11 categories and placed in the top five in 30 out of 36 categories.
“The hard work and dedication of the entire team was clear throughout this Year Two competition and we are incredibly excited to bring home another first-place victory,” said M.J. Yatsko, team leader and recent graduate with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
