Engineering students from Mississippi State University competed April 3 in the 2004 Energy Challenge at the Colorado Winter Park Resort.
Sponsors for the Energy Challenge were the U.S. Department of Energy. the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Georgia Institute of Technology’s Institute of Paper Science and Technology, said team member Rebecca Smith.
“It’s a challenge among 13 universities to come up with something that is energy efficient and saves money,” Smith said.
Each year’s competition involves the design and construction of a specific object using primarily renewable resources. This year the competition was the design and construction of a snowboard, said David Neaves, the team’s rider.
“The competition included a timed run down a slope. We thought it was just going to be a bunny hill, but they had flags that we had to weave through and they had jumps,” Neaves said.
The Energy Challenge is invitational so each team has to earn the right to compete, said team adviser Clifford George.
“We responded to a call for competitive design proposals from the Institute of Paper Science and Technology. We submitted a proposal and earned the right to compete in the Energy Challenge,” George said.
Past design competition entries include a hang-glider, a thermal liquid container, a sail and a kayak, Smith said.
“The Energy Challenge has run six years now, and this year’s challenge is the third year that MSU has been involved,” Smith said.
The competition covered several categories including construction, presentation and performance, team member Paul Allison said.
“Last semester we had to write a mid-term and submit it. We also had to write a final that was 10 pages, and we submitted a 15-minute video with clips of our work,” Allison said.
The competition was based on a snowboard constructed with a target of 80 percent recycled material, Smith said.
“The prizes were $15,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place and $5,000 for third,” Smith said.
Over 50 percent of the funding for the team came in the form of a reward presented to the team by the competition sponsors, Smith said.
“Each team was able to write and submit an application for funding awards from the sponsors. We were one of the schools that was awarded a $2,000 start-up award,” Smith said.
The competition provided the team with experience in their field of study and connections to other engineers across the country, George said.
“The students represented MSU well. They learned a lot about team building and how to compete in a real world project as a team,” George said.