From April 5-7, more than 120 high school and college student teams from the U.S. , Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala put their fuel efficient vehicles to the test on the streets of downtown Houston during the Shell Eco-marathon Americas.
The teams, which spent months designing, building and testing their vehicles, competed to post the highest mile per gallon or best energy efficiency.This year, all competitors were provided with a bottle of Pennzoil Ultra, the official lubricant of Shell Eco-marathon Americas. In addition, the Shell Energy Lab, an interactive exhibit at the event highlighted how innovation is helping to solve energy challenge.
During the the event, Shell also hosted the Tribology Speed Matching Session where 30 students learned about Tribology, the science of friction. Led by Dr. Allie Falender, Shell Innovation Technology Manager and Dr. Wei Yuan, Shell Lubricants Engineer, the program included a series of discussions covering the challenges and solutions of using Tribology.
The winning idea was from Adam Fink from St. Paul’s School in Louisiana and Jonathan Acsenault from the University of Moncton for designing an electromagnetic bearing combined with a compressed liquid containing microscopic pieces of metal that would as a lubricating agent and fill in microscopic abnormalities in the bearing.
University of Illinois student Reid Bruggeman and Denton High School student Denver Houghton were named runners up for their idea of utilizing diamond-like surface coatings to reduce wear. The winners received the opportunity to interview for an internship with Shell Oil plus $200 fuel cards, and runner-ups received $200 fuel cards.
