On Saturday, April 30, the University of Toronto Chemical Vehicles (UTCV) student group competed in the 2022 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Northeast Regional Chem-E-Car Competition.
For the first time, UTCV won first place, beating the reigning champion teams from Clarkson University and Cornell University!
“The competition distance was 20.00 m, and our car ran 20.04 m with our team’s record-breaking error of only 4 cm! This is an extremely competitive result, given the average error for the winning teams at the National competition since 2015 was around 5 cm. It is also an extraordinary accomplishment for our club, given that we managed to attend the competition after only 3 months of lab access as compared to 5 months in a typical season,” says Jinmyung Jang, Co-President of UTCV.
The UTCV team first competed in the regional competition in 2018 and placed ninth out of 21 teams. The next year, they reached sixth place out of 12 teams.
Jang also expresses that this result would not have been possible without the resources and support from the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry.
“On behalf of our team, we would like to thank Professors Cathy Chin, Milica Radisic, Ramin Farnood, Timothy Bender, Grant Allen and Jennifer Farmer, as well as Alex Dean, Mel Duhamel and Jennifer Hsu, and all who donated time, energy, and resources that helped make this happen,” says Yong Qi Luo, Co-President of UTCV.
“Being a part of this design challenge allows our students to develop their problem-solving and leadership skills, while gaining technical exposure to wet chemistry laboratories, battery building and integrating design component,” says Professor Ramin Farnood, Chair, Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry. “This is an excellent example of experiential learning opportunities that we would like to see our students engaged in.”
The team will be advancing to the 2022 AIChE Annual Chem-E-Car Competition (National Championship) in Phoenix, Arizona, from November 11-14.
