Nebraska team wins Chem-E-Car regional title, takes 10th at nationals

A team of Nebraska Engineering students took first place and a $200 prize in the annual Chem-E-Car competition at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Mid-America Student Regional Conference, which was held March 31-April 1 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It was the first regional win for a Nebraska team since 2002. The Nebraska team also earned the Driver Award for the most creative starting and stopping mechanism.

Teams in the Chem-E-Car Competition design and construct a car, powered by a chemical energy source, that safely carries a load over a given distance and then stops at a designated point. Each car is allowed two runs and the car with the closest stopping point to the finish line is the winner.

The Nebraska team – Ahbab Murtoza, Alex McKinney, Austin Eidem, Bryce Puck, Eric Burbach, Julian Davis, Mary Rethwisch, Austin Osborn, Shelby Williby and Ernesto Bravo Baltodano – was chosen by random draw to go first in the competition and its car, named "Redemption," had its best score on the first run, stopping 18 centimeters from the line.

With the win, the Nebraska team qualified to compete against collegiate teams from around the world at the AIChE Annual Meeting Oct. 29-Nov. 3 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team finished 10th out of 44 teams in the national competition. Julian Davis, Austin Eidem and Austin Osborn were co-chairs for the team that also included students Mary Rethwisch, Ernesto Bravo, Shelby Williby, Bryce Puck, Alex McKinney, Eric Burbach, Alex Deng, Dominic Nguyen and Reid Wagner and advisors Hunter Flodman and Leonard Akert.