July 16, 2007 Rotary shares The Rotary International Convention and the Club’s goals for the new year are the topics for President Ned today. July 9 MEETING Invocation and Pledge: Bryce Griffis Attendance: There were 120 members present (34 exempt, 1 honorary), and 79 (20 exempt, 9 honorary) absent. New Member : Marking Clyde Herring’s first meeting as a member, Bill Simmons complimented the new Rotarian’s track record as an MSU student, then as a faculty member. Guests and Visitors : It was family day as guests of members included Connor Guyton of Dad Mark, Douglass Thompson of Dad Joe, Jake Goodwin of Dad Doug, and Pattie Molen wife of Marshall. Skip Descant of the Columbus Commercial Dispatch was a guest of the Club. Rotary Minute : Bill Foster, new member information chair, took the Rotary Minute to explain the Rotary Minute and other ways of teaching members about the organization. In particular, he reminded new members to attend the quarterly orientation “Fireside Chat” at Harvey’s on July 17. Meeting Notes : Kudos were noted for Club members:
MSU Challenge X Team Wins National Championship A team of Mississippi State University students recently took first prize in national competition to re-engineer a crossover SUV to minimize energy consumption and emissions while maintaining the vehicle’s usefulness and performance. Rotarian Marshall Molen, power electronics research professor at MSU’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, shared details of the three-year effort that lead up to the award. He was assisted by Amanda McAlpin of CAVS. Molen, the team’s advisor, was honored as Best Faculty Advisor among the 17 select teams from across the nation. “Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility” is in the final year of a three-year program. The program is jointly sponsored by General Motors Corporation and the U.S. Department of Energy. GM donated a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox crossover utility vehicle for each of the 17 schools to re-engineer as a way of exploring and developing advanced technologies to address energy and environmental issues. Thirty-eight institutions submitted proposals to participate in the program. The MSU team held its official “kick-off” on May 11, 2004. The first year was devoted to planning and design activities. The real fun began in the second and third years when the students completely stripped the Equinox and installed all new drive components. There have been many competitions like this for a number of years, and many of the participating universities have considerable experience with similar programs. When the MSU team first started the prospect was almost overwhelming, Molen observed, because most of the other teams already knew what was going on. Our group had to learn a lot in a short period of time. Another Rotarian, Mike Mazzola, was very instrumental in starting the program. Unlike many externally funded projects at CAVS, Challenge X showed a negative balance on the budget sheet. Instead of bringing in money, it was going to cost the university to participate. But Molen and others saw this program as beneficial to students and a way to quickly immerse MSU in the automotive industry. The automotive industry has not typically come to Mississippi State to recruit, not because we don’t have great engineering students but because we had not dealt with the automotive market. With two major manufacturers coming to Mississippi, the development of CAVS, and programs like Challenge X, that situation is changing quickly. Today, any student that is on the Challenge X team who wants a job in the automotive industry is assured of getting one. Over 100 students signed on the team, but that number dropped quickly as the students found out that they were expected to do real work, Molen said. The current team has a hard-core group of around 18 members. Many are in mechanical engineering, but chemical engineering has been extremely important, too, because of emissions considerations. Electrical engineering also is important. Over half the cost of a new automobile is electrical, and, as Molen observed, if you can’t talk to the computer you’re not going to go anywhere. The vehicle, as re-engineered by the team, is labeled a “through-the-road parallel hybrid configuration.” A diesel engine drives the front wheels and an electric motor drives the rear wheels. The only coupling between the two systems, as the name implies, is through the road. Coordination of the diesel engine with the electric motor is the real challenge. Power delivery in the MSU car is coordinated so that the driver never knows when the power is coming from the diesel engine, when it is coming from the electric motor, or when it is a combination of the two. The car develops a lot power, as evidenced by the fact that the students have broken three axles. A big challenge with diesel engines is emissions reduction. Diesels are especially bad about emitting NOX (oxides of nitrogen). The students attacked this problem in two ways: by tuning the engine to always operate in the right regime and by adding a urea injection system to aftertreat the exhaust. The urea combines with NOX to produce nitrogen and water. Molen closed his presentation with a highly entertaining video that the students developed, entitled “Redneck My Ride.” Playing their redneck mechanic roles to the hilt, the team member/actors had Rotarians laughing uproariously. For more details on MSU’s Challenge X visit http://www.cavs.msstate.edu/projects/challengex/. NEW RYE STUDENT FROM ECUADOR Her father is an engineer for the city’s water company. Her mother is a homemaker. Negrita’s sister, Gabriela Soledad, is 18 and is studying and playing basketball in the U.S. (Negrita didn’t say where!). This year, her family has hosted Ashley, a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Arizona, so they are well acquainted with the program. In school, Negrita is involved in a number of activities, including journalism club, athletics (she has been running since she was 12 and has played with the school basketball team for 3 years). Her school transcript indicates she’s an exceptional student, who speaks English but wants to become more fluent. Her favorite subjects are physics and mathematics. She came to America with a group several years ago and spent two weeks here, visiting both Orlando and Miami in Florida. Her first host family will be Bill and Vicki Burnett, parents of Tori Ferguson who will represent us as an exchange student in Quito, Ecuador. We hope all Rotarians will make an effort to get to know Negrita during her year with us. |
TheRotary Youth Exchange committee is pleased to introduce our new student, who will join us in late July. Maria de Lourdes Caicedo is a 17-year-old young lady from Ambato, Ecuador. She wants to be called by her nickname “Negrita.”