ASU engineering students build a car and skills with chemistry


May 22, 2017

Fred is teaching five engineering students out-of-the-box thinking that applies their technical and project management skills. Fred just happens to be a shoebox-sized, fuel-cell-powered car.

This project is a creation of Arizona State University’s Chem-E-Car competition team, comprised of chemical engineering recent graduates Jayse Langdon and Andrew Dopilka, chemical engineering undergraduate students Alex Cook and Jon Simiyu, electrical engineering undergraduate student Nathan Rodkey and mentored by Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering chemical engineering Assistant Professor César Torres. Photo of Jayse Langdon, Jon Simiyu, Andrew Dopilka and Alex Cook as they work on their fuel-cell-powered car in preparation for the national American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Chem-E-Car competition this November. Left to right: Jayse Langdon, Jon Simiyu, Andrew Dopilka and Alex Cook work on their fuel-cell-powered car in preparation for the national American Institute of Chemical Engineers' Chem-E-Car competition this November. Photo by Pete Zrioka/ASU Download Full Image

The Chem-E-Car competition, led by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, challenges college students to design and build a model car powered by a chemical energy source.

The ASU Chem-E-Car team’s car is powered with a fuel cell that runs on hydrogen gas and oxygen to create water and a current for a consistent chemical reaction to drive the car forward.

The team placed second in the 2017 AIChE Rocky Mountain Regional Conference competition in March, securing them a spot at the national tournament in Minnesota this November.

Driving Fred forward with unique solutions

Dopilka and Langdon competed in the 2016 Chem-E-Car competition with a fuel cell car based on the successful 2012 ASU Chem-E-Car team’s design. Though they didn’t place in 2016, they have used that experience to revitalize Fred in 2017 to successfully complete the competition’s difficult challenge.

An hour before the competition, student teams are given a specified weight the car must carry safely over a specified distance, and they must stop as close as they can to the finish line. They have two rounds to get their best score.

The team put their engineering skills to use to design a successful system. A highly accurate iodine clock, which they consider the best part of their car so far, determines the amount of time the car moves based on the amount of chemical supplied.

“We combine two solutions onboard the car, and when one chemical runs out it turns from clear to dark. A photoresistor sensor detects the change in color and it cuts the power circuit,” Langdon said.

For even more accurate results, the team designed a custom stir plate to ensure the solution is well mixed, which Langdon thinks helped make theirs the best stopping mechanism demonstrated at regionals.

They also follow the “measure twice, cut once” philosophy — taking measurements at ASU and in the competition preparation time to ensure accuracy, something they didn’t see other teams doing.

Torres sees a lot of potential in this team as they’ve refined Fred over the last two years, though he knows national competitions are tough and require a lot of practice.

“Having seen a few national competitions, I know the top places are decided by inches from the finish and this requires extensive testing of the car,” Torres said. “Their success is highly dependent on how much time they can put into testing.”

Success is more than just chemical engineering

Until 2016, the Chem-E-Car team was part of the Controlled Propulsion special topics course that Torres has been running since 2011, but was far from a typical class experience.

Torres designed the course to be an independent learning experience — from designing the chemical reaction to setting up team meetings, assigning tasks and buying supplies. This challenges team members to use much more than technical skills to succeed.

“There’s a structure in labs, but here we’re just making it up as we go,” Dopilka said. “No one is telling us what to do or what to look for.”

The Chem-E-Car team is now part of the AIChE club where it continues to challenge Fulton Schools students.

It’s a rewarding experience when they get it right after all their hard work, and a great way to show how they’ve applied their classroom skills.

“You don’t get this learning experience in the classroom or labs,” Langdon said. “You’re forced to use things you’ve learned in an actual applied setting.”

Torres said it’s a great opportunity to show applied knowledge and more.

“It is an opportunity to put all their knowledge together into a specific design problem,” Torres said. “It also helps them develop their leadership skills and their ability to work in teams that coalesce into a successful design.”

Preparing a formula for nationals and beyond

They’ll be further optimizing the design of the various components of the car and trying out alternative designs using batteries over the summer.

No matter how they place, the team is looking forward to meeting other chemical engineering students from across the country and even around the world, one of their favorite parts of the regional tournament.

They also hope to have more Fulton Schools students join their small team, especially with Langdon and Dopilka beginning graduate studies at ASU in the fall.

Torres is confident that students will seek out this opportunity out of an interest in accomplishing the Chem-E-Car challenge.

Langdon said it’s a fun experience to use skills learned in the classroom on something other than homework, and emphasizes that the technical and project management skills gained are valuable to employers.

“We hope that our success inspires more students to join and make a tradition of success here at ASU,” Langdon said. “We’ve got a big program with a lot of smart people, and we hope the younger classes set out to prove that.”

Monique Clement

Lead communications specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

480-727-1958

ASU professor leads gender workshop for STEM careers in Pakistan

U.S.-Pakistan Centers for Advanced Studies in Energy makes headway in gender quality


May 22, 2017

The U.S.-Pakistan Centers for Advanced Studies in Energy (USPCAS-E) held a workshop in Islamabad, Pakistan this spring with the hopes of improving gender equity for women in science, technology, engineering and math fields.

The three-day workshop was helmed by Professor Chad Haines of Arizona State University, who specializes in cultural anthropology and topics related to the contemporary Muslim world. The prominence of women in STEM fields from Pakistan differs greatly depending on the region according to Haines. In the Punjab region for example, 20 to 30 percent of STEM students are women. In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, the percentage of women is actually much lower. Participants of the ASU/USPCAS-E workshop on gender. Photographer: Hassan Zulfiqar/USPCAS-E Participants of the ASU/USPCAS-E workshop on gender. Photo by Hassan Zulfiqar/USPCAS-E Download Full Image

Haines summarized that the challenge in the region, “is creating a foothold where women are encouraged and supported and based on that, there is much greater potential for increasing the number of Pakistani women in the STEM fields.”

The workshop is part of a greater effort by USPCAS-E, which is a project funded by USAID as part of a partnership between Arizona State University and two leading Pakistani universities: the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) and the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar. The goal is to focus on applied research relevant to Pakistan’s energy needs and help produce skilled graduates in the field of energy. Fostering student and faculty exchanges are part of a greater goal, which also includes an emphasis in gender equality.

The workshop attracted a variety of participants including students, educational administrators, professors, researchers as well as professionals from the engineering field.

Muhammad Asad, a professional engineer who attended the workshop said that the subject of gender equality was eye-opening for him. “I [had] never heard about this type of topic being discussed on this kind of platform before.” Asad had high hopes about the workshop saying, “it all starts from self-development you know. If you learn something then you practice it yourself.” The workshop has the potential to ripple beyond its original audience. Asad has plans to disseminate what he has learned throughout his social circles.

There was a mix of both men and women attending the event, some of whom were seeking role models and others, inspiration. H. Masooma Naseer Cheema, a scientist and assistant professor said she attended to, “revitalize my passion and keep my spirit high by knowing that I am not alone in the journey of becoming a successful professional female.” Speaking from experience she said, “the life of a professional career women is not an easy task.”

Following the workshop, another attendee, Anaiz Gul Fareed, who is a graduate student at NUST hoped to spread, “awareness to different localities and [various] under-developed areas of my country regarding girls education.”

Ishtiaq Hussain, who is self-described as being from a very conservative family expressed that, “Before attending the workshop I was not really in favor of females getting an equal opportunity everywhere, but now I have learned how to help females and provide them with an equal opportunity to become a successful.”

Cultural anthropologist Professor Chad Haines of Arizona State University speaks on a panel about gender equity to an audience in Pakistan. Photographer: Hassan Zulfiqar/USPCAS-E

Content is king ... and queen

The format of the workshop was less of a lecture, and more of an open exchange of ideas.

Cheema praised the event saying that, “most of the gender equity-related workshops usually address women. But [the] good thing about this workshop is that it addressed both genders.”

Participants weighed and analyzed the difference between, equality, equity and justice. “I would like to get justice rather than equity and equality,” Cheema said.

Anaiz Gul Fareed reflected on several examples of gender inequity, citing, “that there are several offices in Pakistan where there are no facilities for women restrooms.” He also learned that, “more than 50 percent of girls who opt for medical sciences,” may do so, “just because they can get a well-settled boy to marry.”

“While attending this session, I decided to help my three daughters to grow without limiting them,” Fareed said. “I promised myself that I would help them to achieve whatever they want to.”

The workshop hoped to reach individuals because it is the everyday administrators, faculty members, professional and students who become empowered to speak up that possess the potential to foster a culture of gender equity and encourage women in the STEM fields.

Gender issues in Pakistan are also addressed by the project through a scholar exchange program in which ASU which has had an exponential growth of female participants.

To date, this is the fifth workshop that USPCAS-E and ASU has held in Pakistan on various topics related to the project, including green building practices and photovoltaics to name a few.

USPCAS-E will continue to deliver workshops in Pakistan through 2019.

Erika Gronek

Communications Specialist, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering