Chem-E Car is a design team that provides undergraduates with an opportunity to learn chemical, mechanical, electrical, and programming skill sets. Our organization builds small, handheld cars powered and stopped by chemical reactions to compete in regional and national competitions hosted by AIChE. At the competition, a judge announces a distance and specifies a weight that the car must carry. The team whose car can get closest to the announced distance after two rounds wins the competition.
A successful Chem-E-Car requires a team that is chemically competent, capable of building mechanical/electrical systems, and eager to collaborate to build a fully functional car. To conquer these tasks, Chem-E-Car is broken down into two committees (Competition and Research) and each committee has 4 teams (Power, Stopping, Electrical, Mechanical). The teams on the competition committee focus on projects that will be implemented in the upcoming competition, while the research committee researches mechanisms to be used in future competitions.Executive Captain
Patrick O’Sullivan, Administrative Director
patrickosullivan@ufl.edu
Asha Rao, Technical Director
raoa1@ufl.edu
Kaylee Conrad, Technical Director
k.conrad@ufl.edu
Caroline Cicotte
cicottec@ufl.edu
The four teams came together and built the Pb-Racer, which placed 10th in the 2021 AIChE Annual Student Conference! The car is powered by a lead-acid battery and stopped by a chameleon-clock mechanism. In the future, the team may look into alternative forms of power or stopping. As Chem-E-Car continues to take on more projects, our organization will continue to grow. If you’re interested in learning more or getting involved, you can always reach out to us via email or find us on Facebook.
The Electrical Team builds a circuit which senses the color change of our stopping mechanism and toggles our power mechanism to stop. The electrical team members upload computer code to a microcontroller to coordinate the stopping and power mechanisms together.
Mechanical Team
The Mechanical Team builds the car itself. The car must travel a max distance of 30 meters and veering off course costs the team a 3-meter penalty. Keeping the car straight over such a long distance requires quality axels built by our mechanical team. They are also responsible for building containers to safely house the power, stopping, and electrical systems on the car.
The Power Team is tasked with creating a chemical reaction that can deliver the energy needed to move the motor on the car itself. In short, this team makes the car move! In the past, the team has used multiple types of homemade batteries. This would include Lead-Acid Batteries, Copper-Zinc Batteries, Aluminum-Air Batteries, and more!The Stopping Team is tasked with creating time-sensitive reactions responsible for stopping the car. Desirable reactions change color or temperature at variable times. This year we used a chameleon clock, a reaction that changes color over time. The different qualities about the chemicals used in the reaction can vary the time it takes for the color change to occur.
If you would like more information or if you have any questions please reach out to any of our members; their emails are listed in one of the above sections. Or you can use the official ChemE Car email cheme.car.ufaiche@gmail.com
