Chemical engineering students have designs on national wins

Monday, November 6, 2006

Students in the School of Chemical Engineering will attend the 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Meeting in San Francisco from Nov. 11-17 and participate in the national finals of two student competitions.

Oklahoma State University will be represented in both AIChE’s National Chem-E-Car Competition and National Student Paper Competition. Students who won preliminaries during the 2006 Mid-America AIChE Regional Conference hosted by the School of Chemical Engineering in April qualified for the finals.

The chem-e-car team, including Meghan Benyshek, Kelly Guss, Steve Keen, Jordan Loudermilk, and Ogadinma Offor, captured OSU’s second consecutive Mid-America regional title and third national finals bid in three years. They will attempt to top OSU's second-place finish in the finals in 2005.

“We feel really good about our chances,” said Sundar Madihally, assistant professor of chemical engineering and faculty adviser to OSU’s student chapter of AIChE. “We finished in the top three of nationals last year, so we were invited to the international Asia-Pacific Chem-E-Car Competition in Malaysia this past August, where we took sixth overall.”

In the performance segment of the contest, teams try to get their cars to stop as close as possible to a target distance by controlling the chemical reactions they have utilized. They are given the distance moments before the race and must refer to previously determined calibrations. A reaction between baking soda and concentrated vinegar powers OSU’s car.

Contestants are also evaluated based on a technical poster and team presentation explaining the power source, unique innovations and safety features of their entries. They also score points based on the creativity and performance of their shoebox-sized vehicles, which must be built for less than $50.

In the National Student Paper Competition finals, David Wiist will present his work as an undergraduate researcher with Madihally and Jim Smay, assistant professor of chemical engineering. The paper details developing techniques to fabricate three-dimensional scaffolds to grow bioengineered tissues from umbilical stem cells.

“David is our first student to make the finals of the paper competition since Ali Moshfeghian took second place nationally in 2003,” Madihally said. “I’ve told him that he better take first place because we’ve already had a second-place winner.

“He has been practicing his presentation, including giving it last week for one of the school’s graduate seminars, so he’s well prepared."

Nineteen students will represent OSU at the AIChE Annual Meeting. In addition to rooting on peers in the competitions, the group will pick up an Outstanding Student Chapter Award. For the eighth consecutive year, OSU’s chapter has been named by the national AIChE organization as one of the nation’s top 15 student chapters for its activity, participation and service level.

Accomplishments this past year include hosting the largest-attended Mid-America AIChE Regional Conference in the region’s history.