Set up, drop, and go

People work on a small vehicle - Set up, drop, and go: Engineering students compete in design competition - The annual contest brings together first-year mechanical engineering students vying for victory in a race of their small homemade vehicles. Teeming with energy and anticipation, first-year mechanical engineering students gathered last week to compete in the annual MechE Freshmen Design Competition, held in the Great Hall on the Homewood Campus. Teams of two or three students went head-to-head over multiple rounds to see whose vehicles would travel the fastest and the farthest. The vehicles were powered by potential energy released from the dropping of five-pound weights. Charging devices, also designed by the students, transferred the energy from the weights to the vehicles, which then converted it into mechanical kinetic energy, propelling them (at least in theory!) across the room. Each team had two minutes to get its charging device and vehicle hooked to the rig, reset the weight, and prepare for competition. In the single-elimination competition, winners advanced to the next round of the bracket; losers were eliminated but are still hoping for a good grade.