“Challenge X has done it again. Although most students may not recognize the name of this competitive team at the University of Akron, it has won more awards and honors in the past three years than most athletic teams at UA. Its most recent award is a $2,500 grant from General Motors to continue research on UA’s Challenge X hybrid vehicle.”
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Challenge X has done it again.

Although most students may not recognize the name of this competitive team at the University of Akron, it has won more awards and honors in the past three years than most athletic teams at UA.

Its most recent award is a $2,500 grant from General Motors to continue research on UA’s Challenge X hybrid vehicle.

This year’s Challenge X team, according to faculty adviser Iqbal Husain, consists of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels studying electrical and mechanical engineering and business. He said the Challenge X teams are given a car from General Motors and are told to redesign it based on engineering principles.

Challenge X is about redesigning a car to increase efficiency and reduce emissions while keeping customer satisfaction ratings, Husain said.

For the past three years, the students have been working on a Chevrolet Equinox.

According to Husain, the most recent award is from a marketing presentation on the car.

The competition was initially supposed to run for three years, he said. The fourth year extension is mainly focusing on outreach and public presentation.

We are in collaboration with the business program this year.

Husain said that the first year of the competition was focused on design. The car was received in the second year and the third year was used to perfect it.

The CBA is our key to marketing and advertising, said Robert Veillette, another Challenge X faculty adviser. Marketing student Melissa Davis did most of the work in her promotion of our work.

The University of Akron became involved with Challenge X three years ago when Husain proposed the idea to the College of Engineering.

It was an opportunity to give students a good hands-on education, and we were missing out on many activities that other universities were involved in, Husain said. We got accepted, and found faculty members and students to help.

Husain also commented on the diverse backgrounds of the students involved in the organization.

This work is very multidisciplinary, he said.

According to Veillette, the process of bringing all the students together was taxing, but enjoyable.

It’s been a lot of work – it’s very large, and very involved, he said. I feel that students have learned a lot, though.

He added that the project has a very complicated architecture.

Unlike many other universities, who installed ready-made subsystems, we built many of ours from scratch, he said. It was very complicated and taxing.

These projects are big projects, Husain said.

He said he puts in nearly eight hours a week, while Veillette puts in even more during the hardest parts of the competition.

The team is headed to California on Nov. 27 to present its work. The demonstration includes a 40-mile run between Los Angeles and Anaheim.

The tests are to make sure the vehicle is operational – trial runs on drive cycles, acceleration tests and hill climbing tests, Husain said. The organizer set rules to be equal platforms for teams, so that all competition was fair and safe for students.

The Challenge X team competes with 17 other teams nationwide. Last June, the team placed 12th in the competition, which was held in Michigan.

It’s a great hands-on education experience, Husain said. It’s fun and exciting; it puts a good name for our university out there.

I believe that students who are involved with this are some of the best and most talented students at the University of Akron.

Veillette agreed.

It’s been a lot of fun working with the students and seeing how they benefit, he said. They are an extremely hard working group of people and they have a professional maturity about them.

It makes you feel good to know that you helped the university.

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