On Sunday, May 24, Canadian high school students worked together at the University of Waterloo to race EVs they designed and built from scratch in the Waterloo Electric Vehicle Challenge.
“I love the idea of getting that blank sheet of paper, of having a group of students excited about the possibilities,” said Peter Teerstra, lecturer in the department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering. The EV Challenge is run by the Sedra Student Design Centre, of which Teerstra is the director, and is sponsored by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, Multimatic and Interstate Batteries.
The event began with a handful of Waterloo Region high schools in June 2012 and later expanded across the province and the rest of the country. Students competed in two heat races, and the top cars competed in the event’s feature race.
John Alimoglu, president of the Woodlands Automotive Club, believes that reliability is an important factor for success. “Honestly, you need to build something reliable. It doesn’t matter how good your car could theoretically be; it has to be able to consistently perform in the day-to-day, through rough conditions,” he said.
For the students, the event offers much more than a trophy. In addition to developing technical skills and the ability to work on a team, students form lasting friendships. “After spending so much time in late-night meetings, building the car, crashing the car together, a lot of suffering together when we have a bad competition… it creates a lot of bonding when you have to go through all these difficulties together,” Alimoglu said.
Car 50 from Bluevale Collegiate Institute won the feature race, completing 41 laps, followed by car 97 from St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School at 39 laps and car 94 from Waterloo Oxford District Secondary School, completing 36 laps.
The team, Caution Tape Robotics, was awarded the Interstate Batteries Rookie Team Award. Garth Webb Secondary School came in first place for both the Multimatic Engineering Design Award and the Toyota Fabrication and Manufacturing Award.
