Students of the Americas ready to compete in super-mileage engineering competition
March 7, 2013
On April 4-7, competing teams from Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will come together to put their super-mileage vehicles to the test in the seventh annual Shell Eco-marathon Americas. Last year's winner, a team from Mater Dei High School in Evansville, Ind., achieved a mileage of 2,188 per gallon. Before that victory, the team from Universite Laval in Quebec, Canada had the highest mileage for three years running. In the past, the team from the Universidade Federal de Santa Caterina in Brazil placed in the top 10 for the Prototype Gasoline category.
The Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico is putting forward two vehicles this year. The UNAM faces an additional challenge on top of the already incredible goal of building a vehicle that gets 2,189 miles to the gallon. The team plans to complete their vehicles six weeks before the competition to allow enough time to transport them to Houston.
Nearly 150 teams have developed innovative vehicles and seek to complete them before April 4. This year's competition also features a new prize category called "The Global Energy Challenge: A Look to the Future" that encourages students to consider the context around the mileage challenge.
Those interested in the competition and the teams can make calls to Brazil, Canada or Mexico using international calling cards.