A team of engineering students at the University of Alberta (U of A) is hoping for a repeat of last year when it heads to Indianapolis this week for the Shell Eco-marathon, an international competition to build the most energy-efficient cars.
Last year the U of A EcoCar team took first place out of 70 teams in the hydrogen fuel cell category for “Lucy,” a tri-wheeler shaped like a Toucan’s bill. The team also took first place for safety and sportsmanship.
“So we basically swept the competition. I don’t think anything can beat that year for me,” said project manager Golie Masoumian, in an interview with TheRockies.Life.
Dreams of Gold
She said this year’s entry, “Sally,” stands a good chance of taking home gold once again. On paper, the technical stats look good.
The EcoTeam spent a year engineering and building this optimized, ultra-light, and ultra-energy-efficient vehicle.
Sally is a similarly shaped hydrogen-powered vehicle to last year’s entry. It weighs 50 kg and is 30 percent more efficient than Lucy. It can reach top speeds of a whopping 35 km/h.
Led by Passion
Masoumian, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, spent her early years in New Brunswick before her family moved to Fort McMurray.
After graduating high school, she enrolled at Edmonton’s MacEwan University for a year and then transferred to U of A.
It was a COVID-19 year and the campus was a ghost town.
When classes went back in person in 2022, Masoumian was keen to get involved in something other than textbooks and tedious labs. She heard about EcoCar and decided to join the team.
After a year on the engineering team, she stepped into the project manager role. Masoumian enjoyed the experience so much that she stayed on for a second year in the leadership position.
“I think the main responsibility for me was bringing the team back together because after COVID the team kind of split apart. Learning how to talk to students from all engineering disciplines, that was a pretty big learning experience for me,” Masoumian said.
“I had to communicate with the faculty on how the team is doing, how the timeline is going, what kind of activities are coming up. I also had to ensure that standards were in place to ensure that the team built the car safely and according to the standards that the university had in place,” she continued.
Masoumian says competition day in Indianapolis is exciting but stressful. She decided not to attend this year’s competition to make room for other team members who haven’t yet had the chance to experience the buzz.
Career Shaped by Learned Skills
In late March Masoumian got the coveted iron ring, a Canadian tradition in which graduating engineers take an oath of commitment to ethical and professional conduct.
After graduating in April, Masoumian will start her career as a junior engineer with Powell Industries, a Texas-based company that makes equipment for electricity distribution and has a subsidiary in Acheson just west of Edmonton.
She said the experience at EcoCar opened up a lot of opportunities career-wise.
“The experience of seeing the car being built over a year was very valuable,” she said. “Being project manager taught me so many soft skills, how to manage a team, the basics of budgeting, and the basics of safety. I’ve built up a lot of foundational knowledge that I can take with me.”
The Shell Eco-marathon takes place April 2-6 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500. Competitors do four laps of the track in 35 minutes with first prize going to the car that uses the least amount of fuel.
The U of A team is focused on hydrogen fuel cell technology, which uses the chemical energy of hydrogen to create clean, low to zero-carbon electrical energy.
