Engineering students from UW-Madison won top awards this past weekend at Challenge Bibendum, the world's largest environmental vehicle event.
The fifth-annual competition was held September 22-25 in San Francisco and Sonoma, Calif. Students competed against prototypes from other universities and major vehicle manufacturers from around the globe.
\We took away the same number of awards as any car company did for the number of vehicles we had,"" said Glenn Bower, faculty associate in mechanical engineering, who oversees the group.
The students' budget was much more limited than companies such as Ford, General Motors and Toyota, who used the event as a showcase for upcoming technology.
""We could reach out our hand and touch $3 million prototypes,"" said Jason Peto, member of the Wisconsin hybrid team. ""We thought we might have been out-classed budget wise.""
One of UW-Madison's vehicles, a 1994 Mercury Sable called the ""Aluminum Cow,"" took away two gold awards for greenhouse gas emissions and fuel efficiency. It also won a silver award for acceleration.
Their ""Moolander"" Ford Explorer did not come away with awards, which Bower attributes to the fact that it was competing against smaller cars. However, it was the only university-made SUV that didn't break down during the competition.
One part of the competition involved driving the vehicles at a constant 45 miles-per-hour around the Infineon Raceway, including its 13 aggressive corners.
""We left rubber around every corner,"" said Peto.
Other competitions including accelerating to 60 miles-per-hour as fast as possible and then braking to zero, navigating a slalom with cones and testing fuel economy on a track.
The Aluminum Cow also won the 1998 and 1999 FutureCar competitions and the 2001 Tour de Sol. The Moolander won both 2002 and 2003 FutureTruck
competitions.
