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Announcements

Challenge X 2008 Competition Road Rally (May 13-May 21)

Start: Newark, New Jersey
Day 3: Manhattan, New York
Day 4: Baltimore, Maryland
Day 6: Washington, DC

Click here for an interactive map of our road rally route.

Tulsa's 2008 Awards:

If you are interested in learning more about Challenge X, visit our Challenge X FAQ.

News

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Day 9: Today Amanda spent the morning at DOE for the satellit media tour. No Tulsa-area stations interviewed her, but she talked to INN. The focus today was the finish line ceremony for Challenge X. Mississippi State won the competition this year with Wisconsin in 2nd place. The team said goodbye to all of our friends then headed to the airport today (although Amanda had a late flight and so stayed to load Isabella for transport back to Tulsa). Our team was interviewed by Washington DC's Channel 7 at the airport. We have had a great trip, but we are happy to be going home.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Day 8: Today started with the final presentation on Outreach and Amanda's interview for outstanding Woman in Engineering. This was followed by a series of meetings with Representative John Sullivan, Senator James Inhofe and the legislative aide to Senator Tom Coburn. We also drove several other congressmen around in our SUV. We left at 5:00 to go to the Awards Ceremony. We are pleased that we won 2 bronze medals, 9 silver medals, and 2 gold medals in events. Our highest rankings were in the areas of Well-to-Wheels Greenhouse Gas emissions and On-Road Emissions Energy Use. Overall we ranked 5th!

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.

Monday, May 19, 2008
Day 7: Today we devoted ourselves to presentations. We had all three of our technical competition papers today: National Instruments, Technical, and Control Strategy. I believe they all went very well. Virtually everyone made it to the Smithsonian museums during the day. After the museums closed, we took the Metro to Chinatown for dinner at a Mediterranean tapas bar and dessert at Haagen-Dazs. Tonight we were celebrating the close of the Challenge X project and Amanda's 21st birthday (a little early). Following dinner, the team continued to practice for the Outreach presentation tomorrow.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.

Sunday, May 18, 2008
Day 6: Mari and Matt drive Isabelle from Baltimore, MD to Washington, DC while the rest of the group ride on the bus and work on presentations. Once we arrive to the hotel we settle into the lobby (since rooms aren't ready yet) and continue to prepare the presentations. All of the powerpoint slides are due this afternoon, so everyone pitches in to make sure they are ready. After the last slides are turned in, the group jumps on the metro and goes to Chinatown for dinner. The group reconvenes in one of the rooms to practice/critique presentations until 1 AM.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.

A new page of road rally photos has been added. Check it out here.


Saturday, May 17, 2008
Day 5: Today we spent most of the day at the Maryland Science Center with our vehicles on display. There was a good turnout thanks to the beautiful weather. Mari Riera was interviewed by Automotive Engineering International magazine's Kami Buchholz during the event. The remainder of the day was spent enjoying Baltimore's Inner Harbor area and working on presentations.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.


Friday, May 16, 2008
Day 4: This morning began at Tavern on the Green for a media ride and drive where we drew the attention of several members of the press. After driving members of the press around Central Park, we headed back to the Englishtown Raceway for refueling, minor repairs and lunch. We are having troubles with our brake lights overheating and shutting off, so begin the search for replacement lights. After lunch is the On-Road Fuel Economy competition which takes us from New Jersey to Baltimore. Our clutch actuator fails which slows down our group of cars, but we force the car into one of its failure modes and complete the event in diesel-only mode. Even with the difficulties, it appears that our fuel economy is 38 mpg(diesel).

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.


Thursday, May 15, 2008
Day 3: The acceleration event goes off without incident. Isabelle, with Andrew at the wheel, turns in an excellent time; we think good enough for 3d place overall. In the afternoon, we rallied up the turnpike and into Manhattan, with Isabelle arriving without any problems. Dinner is provided by the competition at Planet Hollywood in Times Square. Few of the students have ever visited New York, so it's a big event for all!

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.

We have added our Team Diary for the Challenge X 2008 Competition. View it here.

Also, we have ended our last survey on consumer exposure to alternatively-fueled vehicles. View the results here.


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Day 2: Another very successful day with lots less drama than Day 1. After some controls "tweaking" in the morning, the TU Challenge X vehicle completes a raft of events, including two separate emissions tests, a "consumer acceptability" presentation event given by Andrew Harmon and Matt Walker, a "drive quality" event, and finally, a student favorite, the autocross. Our car performs nearly perfectly all day long, and we complete each of the events available to us today in time for everyone, and especially the students, to enjoy a few hours doing something besides working on the car, sleeping, or eating.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.


Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Day 1: The TU Challenge X team successfully passes through technical inspection (not without some drama, see below) at RaceWay Park in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey, otherwise known as the Englishtown Raceway, and completes various other qualifying events such as the braking test and the dynamic safety/handling test. It has been a long day, nearly 16 hours at the event, but the team is very pleased with the ways things turned out, and is poised to begin scored events, along with the other teams, on Wednesday.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.


Monday, May 12, 2008

Travel Day: Team members arrive by air at Newark Liberty airport.

For more details, see our Competition 2008 Team Diary.


May 7, 2008
The Good Day Tulsa interview with our Challenge X team has been added to our YouTube Video Blog. There are four different segments to the coverage.

Also, our final outreach report has been added to our Outreach Reports page.


May 6, 2008
Two new videos have been uploaded to our YouTube Video Blog. Take a look at our commercial that has been created for the 2008 Challenge X Competition and the 1-minute shortened version.


March 5, 2008
Tulsa Challenge X has been featured in an article in the March issue of TulsaPeople. Check it out here.


November 27, 2007
Isabelle, three of her team members and one of her faculty advisors are currently in Los Angeles for the post-Thanksgiving media extravaganza! We will be playing tag team with people flying in and out of LA throughout the week, and pictures will be posted of our adventures.


November 23, 2007
A new commercial for the University of Tulsa's one and only hybrid SUV, Isabelle, is now on our YouTube page. See it here.


November 12, 2007
We have a new survey about owning alternatively-fueled vehicles. It is located to the left side of our home page.
The results of our previous survey can be seen on our Survey Page.

News Archive


For more information on Challenge X at TU, contact:

Dr. Christi Patton
Keplinger Hall
The University of Tulsa
600 S. College Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74104 USA
Phone (918) 631-2978
Fax (918) 631-3268

 

 

 

 
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