The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition (AVTC) series is a long running collegiate vehicle design competition for North American universities. The current three year competition series, known as EcoCAR 2: Plugging In To the Future, has students design and build a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) that also incorporates alternative fuel. Teams are donated a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu by General Motors to modify. A significant aspect of the competition series is the public outreach and education aspect that leverages the expertise of the students in advanced vehicle technologies and alternative fuels. This also highlights the systems level approach to integrating all aspects of the vehicle to build a vehicle that has the best possible fuel economy, lowest well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions and lowest criteria air pollutant emissions while maintaining or exceeding vehicle performance, utility and safety. This paper presents an overview of the University of Tennessee’s (Team Tennessee) EcoCAR 2 outreach program, including core program goals and measures of effectiveness of the program for Year 2 of the competition. The paper focuses on the role that such programs can have on effective science, technology, engineering and mathematics recruiting through an overview of the outreach activities and the integration of hands on activities and partnerships with local schools. The leveraging of outreach and education capabilities with the team’s outreach partners is also highlighted.
Rapporteur Talk: Outreach and Education
