Andover students are taking sustainability into their own hands by designing and building their own high-efficiency electric car. The Energy Resource Awareness Council (ERAC) and Robotics Club teamed up under the initiative of Jane Thomas ’10, David Luan ’09 and Carl Jackson ’09 to construct an electric car, which will race at the Electrathon America Electric Vehicle Competition organized by Deerfield Academy. ERAC is an environmental organization on campus that “investigates and discusses energy and environmental-related topics in politics, engineering, community activism,” according to its mission statement. Thomas, Co-President of ERAC, said, “The goal [of the Electrathon] is to create, design and build the vehicle that can go the furthest in one hour off of two car batteries. With a set amount of energy and time, it’s really an efficiency race.” Electrathon America is a national competition consisting not only of high school and college teams, but also of professional teams, said Thomas. Thomas said that the purpose of the competition is to increase efficiency of electric cars and create innovative machines that can be produced in mass. The competition will be held on a racetrack in New Hampshire on May 17. In the fall, ERAC and Robotics Club received a $12,000 Abbot Grant to pay for the building of the electric car. “David Luan and Carl Jackson were the ones in charge of putting together the cost breakdown. I was in charge of writing the bulk of the Abbot Grant,” said Jane. “We had to make sure that we had a good enough reason to apply for the grant. We knew what we wanted to do, but we had to make sure we communicated why we were doing this to the Abbot Council,” Thomas added. According to Luan, President and Co-Founder of Robotics Club, the electric car has a slightly rounded teardrop shape. The car is approximately nine feet long, four feet wide and four feet tall. Thomas said, “The car is about the size of an elongated go-cart. It is long and skinny to be as aerodynamic as possible. The car is also very safe, though it won’t be road legal.” “So far, we’ve ordered all of our components except one and we are about 60 to 75 percent done with construction,” said Luan. “We are currently considering a variety of options to further lighten the car to decrease the amount of energy needed to propel the car. One option is exchanging the car’s steel chassis [the fundamental form of the car] for an aluminum or carbon fiber [frame],” said Luan. ERAC and Robotics Club are storing and building the car at Jackson’s house. Luan said that the team is aiming for the finished car to reach an average speed of 55 to 60 miles per hour, and the optimum speed may be 10 or more miles per hour higher than that. Although the Electrathon is in May, Luan said that the group hopes to finish building the week after spring break in order to run practice trials at the competition racetrack. “Optimally, we will have five or six days of practice so we can set up the car. The car has a lot of adjustments to maximize efficiency, ability to turn and pass other cars on the track,” said Luan. Additionally, Luan said that the group does not know who the best drivers are, and they will most likely hold 15-minute test runs to find the best two drivers at Andover. The drivers also have to be relatively small in order to fit in the car, said Luan. According to Thomas, Deerfield decided to organize Electrathon America among prep schools in order to encourage sustainability education. The electric car project was initiated after Patricia Russell, Sustainability Coordinator, contacted Thomas about an invitation from Deerfield to compete in the Electrathon. ERAC and Robotics Club did not choose to enter the competition for the prize, said Thomas. “The prize is not the point. The competition is a chance to innovate. It encourages students to learn more about sustainable transportation,” said Thomas. “Entering this competition will help foster awareness of technology and resources and understanding that technology is not the enemy of sustainability but rather its ally,” added Thomas. Luan, who is in charge of designing the electric car, said, “I’m a big engineering fan. Racing model race cars for fun has given me enough background to design the car.” Jackson, Vice President of the Robotics Club, contributed to the design and also helped to coordinate the project with Thomas and Kathleen Pryde, Instructor in Physics and the club’s faculty advisor. Pryde said, “I am there during meetings for the purpose of ensuring the safety of the students who are building the car. I also sign off on expense reports.”
