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Throughout the beginning of spring semester, an elite team of chemical engineers was hard at work in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building preparing CU’s Chem-E Car for competition.

The Chem-E-Car competition is an engineering design competition where teams build RC-car sized autonomous vehicles that are powered and controlled by analytically designed chemical reactions. The vehicles must carry anywhere from 0 to 500 mL of water and travel between 15-30 meters. Both variables are disclosed an hour before the start of the competition by the judges.

After intensive trials and testing done throughout the semester, the teams will be able to tune their reactions in hopes that their car travels the specified distance as accurately as possible. The competition is sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and competitions are held annually on the regional and national level.

This year, our team of Buffs killed it at the Rocky Mountain Regional competition on March 24. Our vehicle, “Oh the Fe-ny!” won second place and advanced us to the national competition in October.

We built a vehicle that used a hydrogen fuel cell to drive two servo motors. The motors were controlled by an Arduino that delivered power until the characteristic color change of an iodine clock reaction was detected. Ironically, no iron-based reactions were involved in the design of this car.

In addition to “Oh the Fe-ny!” CU also sent another car to competition: “Chem-E Wise.” This unique car produced pressurized carbon dioxide. The gas then powered an engine which moved the car forward. Like “Oh the Fe-ny!” it was also stopped based on the control of an iodine clock reaction. “Chem-E Wise” also performed extraordinarily well at competition, coming in fourth place overall as well as winning the competition for best poster.

The regional competition was intense. After driving for eight hours to Provo, Utah, where the competition was held, both teams had to present the cars to scrutinizing safety and poster judges. The judges looked over every square inch of our car to make sure it held up to the rigorous safety standards of competition. Fortunately, our efforts paid off, and both cars were deemed ready to compete.

The competition itself was a nail-biter, too. The top teams were all within a few centimeters of the required stopping distance, and it was not until the last runs that rankings could be determined. In the end, CU was able to walk away with some serious hardware: two award certificates and a hefty metal trophy.

Looking ahead, all the team members and I are very excited for the national competition in Pittsburgh in late October. We hope to continue improving the design of our “Oh the Fe-ny!” over the summer and correcting mistakes that we made at competition in Utah. When we compete at nationals, all the other teams are going to leave in the Halloween spirit after being spooked at how awesome our car performs!

Though we still have a lot of work to do to prepare for the national competition, I am extremely proud of the work everyone on the team has put in so far.

The members of the team for "Oh the Fe-ny!" are myself (captain), Jason Herron, Hanna Skuladottir, Ahmed Al-qutaini, William Platt and Cameron Welyki. The members of "Chem-E Wise" are Dixa Gautam (captain), Meghan Pfeifer, Jason DesVeaux, Joeseph Hicks, Su Sie Park, and Shiru Guo. Rachel Saker, our AIChE chapter president, also went to regionals.

Without the cooperation of everyone, we never would have achieved so much!

Tanner Bobak is a sophomore majoring in chemical and biological engineering.