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Do IT this week: Layering
5 schools, including Akron, make cut for nationals
By David Giffels
Beacon Journal
Published on Sunday, Mar 30, 2008
As the competition raged at a snail's pace just beyond his team's huddle, Cane Alabakovski raised his head and looked through his safety goggles at the half dozen teammates gathered at their table in the gymnasium.
''I think I accidentally added sulfuric acid instead of dio,'' he confessed.
Dio? He forgot the sodium diosulphate?!
They scowled.
That's why the car had petered out after a mere 8.7 feet.
''But,'' he continued, '' it's OK now.''
They trusted him. They had to. There was too much at stake.
Alabakovski, a University of Akron junior studying chemical engineering, returned to his laptop with the intensity of a mad
scientist, using a chart to calculate the proper amount of fuel to run Akron's Copper Chopper II to victory in the second round.
Nine teams from universities across the Great Lakes region were participating in the Chem-E-Car competition Saturday afternoon in UA's Memorial Hall as part of a conference of chemical engineering students. The top five qualify for the national competition in the fall.
Yes, cars fueled solely by chemical reactions were taking turns running across the polished hardwood gym floor, a risky proposition, considering the beakers, test tubes, syringes and vials being pulled from boxes labeled ''Danger,'' ''Corrosive'' and ''Flammable Liquid.''
The event played out something like BattleBots meets Academic Challenge meets Revenge of the Nerds, with each team taking its turn running a vehicle that had to be small enough to fit in a shoebox and start and stop solely through chemical means. Each had to carry a load of 302 grams of water and travel as close to 82 feet as possible.
Some crawled forward at an agonizingly slow pace. Others took off so fast, their lab-coated pit crews had to sprint ahead to keep them from crashing into the wall.
With the preliminary test round continuing, the Akron team worked on refining its formula. Meanwhile, across the gymnasium, a different drama was unfolding.
The motor had failed on Michigan Technical University's car. The students didn't have a spare. If they could get their car running, though, they'd be able to compete in the second, qualifying round.
But how could they lay their hands on a motor?
Wait, the van! Their university had provided them with a Ford Freestar minivan.
A van with electric windows! Which operate by a small motor inside the door panel!
Two members gathered up a set of tools and dashed off to the parking lot, while two others paced nervously, watching Mike Via, cross-legged on the floor, contemplating pieces of a disassembled chassis. They had only 10 minutes left.
''I'm gonna duct tape it on and hope the gears mesh,'' he said, knocking a bolt loose.
''We have Velcro,'' offered Heather Challier.
''Oh, we can duct tape and Velcro,'' Via said. ''That's engineering at its finest.''
Challier punched the numbers on her cell phone. She listened. Her eyebrows went up.
They had the motor!
The qualifying round began.
Over at the UA table, Alabakovski and his friends had tweaked their chemical formula. If their calculations were correct, the car would crawl slowly for two minutes, hopefully covering 82 feet in the process.
The Michigan Tech duo burst through the doors. Lee Sullivan handed the palm-size Ford motor to Via.
With hands shaking, Via touched the wires together.
Nothing.
''Michigan Tech,'' the emcee called. ''Bring your car to the line.''
Via gathered the pieces of their car and his team trudged to the starting line.
He set the chassis on the floor, dumped the rest on top, lifted his right leg and gave it a push with his heel.
The car rolled a few feet. The announcer played along.
''I guess it was biochemically driven, by foot action,'' he said.
When all was done, the University of Michigan finished in first place, followed by Ohio State University, Minnesota, UA and the University of Wisconsin, all of whom will compete in the nationals in Philadelphia.
Jaclyn Shuman, who shares co-captain duties with Alabakovski, will have graduated by then, but hopes to help with the next generation of Chem-E-Car: ''The Akron Classic,'' a model of a 1960 Aston Martin with a body built of polyethylene terephthalate glycol and an equally poetic fuel system.
''It feels good to be going back to nationals,'' she said, blinking away a tear brought on by her five years invested in this competition, a tear made of one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen mixed with sodium chloride and tasting of victories past and yet to come.
As the competition raged at a snail's pace just beyond his team's huddle, Cane Alabakovski raised his head and looked through his safety goggles at the half dozen teammates gathered at their table in the gymnasium.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Massillon, OH
Posted 11:12 PM, 08/23/2009
I have been misquoted. The chemical is called sodium thiosulfate, not sodium diosulphate.
