UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s Advanced Vehicle Team (AVT) has been accepted into the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Argonne National Laboratory’s four-year EcoCAR Innovation Challenge. The competition is the 15th installment of the DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Competitions series, which tasks university students with designing and building intelligent mobility solutions and innovative products using emerging technologies.
Nicholas Carosi, senior in mechanical engineering and AVT team lead, said the EcoCAR challenge is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and gives students the chance to play a role in the future of the automotive industry.
“Competitions like these push students to build real engineering abilities such as problem solving, systems thinking and the ability to adapt to complex challenges,” Carosi said.
Twenty universities have been selected to compete across two vehicle platforms, General Motors (GM) and Stellantis, who are sponsors alongside technology partner MathWorks. Penn State will compete in the GM track, where they will redesign a Chevrolet Blazer Super Sport’s propulsion system while also incorporating advanced features, such as high-speed autonomous driving capabilities.
“This track gives our team the opportunity to redesign the rear propulsion system while also developing connected and automated vehicle capabilities,” said Mutasim Quraishi, senior in mechanical engineering and incoming team lead. “It is especially exciting because the work includes high-speed autonomous driving features as well as an autonomous autocross challenge.”
The autocross challenge is an autonomous precision-based competition, where cars navigate traffic obstacles.
Quarishi said he is excited to build on the team’s past successes and to oversee the team’s continued growth as engineers.
“For our team, the EcoCAR Challenge is a chance to build on the foundation we developed in AutoDrive Challenge II while expanding into new areas of propulsion, controls and vehicle integration.”
Over the course of the four-year challenge, teams will advance through a “structured but flexible” development cycle, according to Argonne National Lab. In year one, teams will receive training and resources in innovation methods, entrepreneurial/intrapreneurship frameworks and introductions to marketing and communications basics such as storytelling, branding and technical-to-nontechnical translation. In this phase, they will also begin their initial product ideation, scoping and feasibility analysis.
In years two through four, teams will advance through phase gates aligned with standard product lifecycles: product development, pitching, prototyping and market-readiness assessment. Team progress will be evaluated through industry judges and advisers, who will provide feedback to allow teams to pivot, refine or discontinue products as needed, allowing flexibility to simulate real-world innovation cycles.
The Penn State Advanced Vehicle Team comprises students from multiple engineering and technical disciplines, working collaboratively on advanced vehicle technologies through extracurricular involvement and capstone design projects.
Gary Neal, director of mechanical engineering capstone design projects, assistant teaching professor of mechanical engineering and faculty adviser of Penn State AVT, said the team’s acceptance into the competition is “wonderful.”
“Penn State’s Advanced Vehicle Team has been involved in these types of competitions for over three decades,” Neal said. “We are excited to collaborate with universities and companies throughout North America to achieve the impossible.”
Students interested in joining the Advanced Vehicle Team can learn more at Penn State Discover.