Penn State Chem-E-Car earns regional award, qualifies for global competition

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s Chem-E-Car team, part of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student chapter, placed first out of 21 schools in the Chem-E-Car Performance Competition at the 2026 AIChE Mid-Atlantic Conference. This recognition qualifies the team for the 2026 Annual Student Conference, an international competition that will take place in November. Last year, Penn State’s Chem-E-Car team took fourth place in the global competition.

“From the time I joined to now, we have all learned a lot, worked hard and made many improvements to our approach to developing each car,” said Meilisa Thomas, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in chemical engineering and the club’s president. “I see these recent successes as an indication that we're heading in the right direction.”

Chem-E-Car competitions engage college students in designing and constructing a small model car powered by a chemical energy source, according to the AIChE website. Students work in teams to design system components including batteries, pressure vessels, combustion engines and stopping mechanisms. One hour before the competition starts, the teams are given a required distance between roughly 50 feet to 100 feet, which the car must travel safely and precisely.

This year’s regional conference was hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University from March 28-29. The winning car, Penn State’s Foam Sweet Foam, is powered by a lead acid battery, according to Thomas. To stop the engine, the team blocked a laser in the onboard computer system with a carefully controlled elephant toothpaste reaction, which rapidly breaks down hydrogen peroxide with potassium iodide and traps the resulting oxygen gas in bubbles of liquid soap.

Foam Sweet Foam was almost exclusively constructed from 3D printed parts, and its look was inspired by the flying house from Disney and Pixar’s “Up.”

“I'd say the best part of the design process for me has always been the collaborative work that goes on between the teams to make sure that the chemical reactions are working in synchronicity with the body and brains to make a full car,” said Ben Weise, a second-year undergraduate student majoring in chemical engineering and the lead for the club’s power team.

The following students have served as Foam Sweet Foam team leads:

• Meilisa Thomas, president
• Leif Kaiser, co-vice president
• Frank Intini, co-vice president
• Luolin Zhou, secretary
• Ben Weise, power team lead
• Dev Karthikeyan Bharani, body team lead
• Dean Sauerwine, stopping mechanism lead
• Nathan Dummer, brains team lead

Previously, Penn State placed fourth out of 53 universities in the Chem-E-Car Poster Competition at the 2025 Annual Student Conference, which was hosted in Boston from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 that year. The team’s car at the time, Knock-Out, was powered by an internal combustion engine from a weedwhacker, according to Thomas. As a stopping mechanism, the team used a potassium aluminate reaction, adjusting the rate of heat release until the car reached a set temperature and the onboard computer system shut off the engine.

“It was great to lead the development of software for the microcontroller, along with its corresponding circuit board, wiring and sensors,” said Nathan Dummer, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in computer science and the lead for the club’s brains team. “I especially enjoyed collaborating with people from different majors and backgrounds to address hardware-related issues.”

The fuel for Knock-Out was made from scratch and consisted of 99% ethanol, and the body of the car was almost entirely 3D printed with chemically compatible materials.

The following students served as Knock-Out team leads:

• Connor Hammond, president
• Adil Sheikh, vice president
• Meilisa Thomas, secretary
• Leif Kaiser, power team lead
• Frank Intini, body team lead
• Kyle Li, stopping mechanism co-lead
• Luolin Zhou, stopping mechanism co-lead
• Nathan Dummer, brains team lead

"The most meaningful aspect of working on Knock-Out was learning how the theory in class can be applied to real world situations like synthesizing ethanol fuel,” said Leif Kaiser, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in chemical engineering and the club’s co-vice president. “As for Foam Sweet Foam, I learned a lot about how to mentor and work with my peers and the importance of simplistic design. It has been an amazing couple of years, and I am excited for the far destinations this club will bring future students.”

This fall, Penn State’s Chem-E-Car team will compete in the global competition during the 2026 AIChE Annual Student Conference, taking place from Nov. 6-9 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The competition will be among many events, workshops and professional development sessions that celebrate chemical engineering and provide an opportunity for student engineers to connect with industry professionals.