Some members of CCNY’s 2024 Chem-E-Car team with “VitaVroom” [center]. Standing from left: Joseph Castaneda, Daniel Steininger and Maty Gueye. Front row: Luna Silva and Sokhna "Diarra" Diacke.
“VitaVroom,” the latest incarnation of student-designed, chemically-powered shoebox sized-vehicles from The City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering, placed fourth at AIChE's annual Chem-E-Car Competition® in San Diego, California, from a field of 51 foreign and domestic entries.
The result maintains the Grove School’s reputation as a top performer in the international event. Student teams qualify for the finals by excelling in regional competitions.
VitaVroom secured CCNY’s trip to the finals –- held at the San Diego Convention Center -- with a top four finish at the AIChE Mid-Atlantic regionals in Maryland last spring.
The objective of the Chem-E-Car competition is for students to build a car that runs and stops at a precise distance via two distinct chemical reactions. The target distance this year was 26.62-meters.
VitaVroom stopped 31.8 centimeters from the target distance. Cornell University’s entry “Under Pressure” won by reaching within 12.4 cm of the target, followed by Brazil’s Centro Universitário FEI (15.2 cm), and the Greek-based National Technical University of Athens (19.3 cm). China’s Nanjing University of Science and Technology (45.2 cm) was fifth.
The CCNY team members (all chemical engineering majors unless indicated) were:
• Luna Silva (junior);
• Daniel Steininger (senior);
• Shaedil Dider (electrical engineering, junior);
• Joseph Castañeda (senior);
• Maty Gueye (senior); and
• Diacke Sokhna (senior).
Grove School chemical engineering professor Raymond Tu was the faculty advisor. “I couldn’t be more proud of this year’s Chem-E-Car team. They worked together day and night to put together a world-class car and compete for the first time since the pandemic,” he said.
In CCNY's previous trips to the Chem-E-Car Competition® in the last decade, “Manganese Prime,” also placed fourth in 2019; “Zincotron” was third in 2018 and won the Spirit of Competition Award in Pittsburgh. There was also a second place finish in 2013 with “REAKTER,” and Spirit of Competition awards in 2014 with “Grover,” 2015 with “RuSTi,” in 2016 with “Iodonator” and in 2017 with “Sulfurious.”
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
p: 917.892.0374
e:
jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu