Altoona, Pa., Resident Sarah Brown and Teammates Win E-Dragster Race

2012 Jun 21

Sarah Brown, a resident of Altoona, Pa., was part of the winning all-female Women in Engineering@RIT Hot Wheelz team that went 100 meters in just under six seconds to win the first e-dragster race at this year's Imagine RIT: Innovation and Creativity Festival on May 5 at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Brown is a first-year mechanical engineering student in RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering.

The electric-vehicle drag race, a challenge presented by RIT President Bill Destler to showcase alternative vehicles, kicked off the festival. WE@RIT Hot Wheelz was one of a dozen alternative energy vehicles that sped down the course at the event.

The team built the non-traditional vehicle using a lightweight go-cart chassis with six absorbed glass mat, or AGM-lead-acid batteries wired in series, to power the 72-volt, 10-horsepower motor. The batteries chosen are considered advantageous for high speeds required by racing vehicles, and they can be recharged quickly. The team also machined original parts in the engineering college's machine shop and built a unique start/stop system-a contactor that turned on the high current circuit, wired to a button switch mounted on the steering wheel. They also had a back-up emergency stop-system-two battery-charging cable connectors that could be pulled apart by the driver to disconnect power.

The WE@RIT Hot Wheelz team also includes Heather Beam (Eastampton, N.J.), Maura Chmielowiec (Batavia, N.Y.), Natalie Ferrari (Greensburg, Pa.), Rachele Floeser (Pittsford, N.Y.), Camila Gomez Serrano (Sammamish, Wash.), Aurora Kiehl (Fairfax, Va.), Margurita Rincon (Tyler, Texas) and Olivia Robertson (Chesterland, Ohio).

Rochester Institute of Technology is internationally recognized for academic leadership in computing, engineering, imaging technology, sustainability, and fine and applied arts, in addition to unparalleled support services for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. RIT enrolls 17,000 full- and part-time students in more than 200 career-oriented and professional programs, and its cooperative-education program is one of the oldest and largest in the nation.

For two decades, U.S. News & World Report has ranked RIT among the nation's leading comprehensive universities. RIT is featured in The Princeton Review's 2011 edition of The Best 373 Colleges as well as its Guide to 286 Green Colleges. The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2011 includes RIT among more than 300 of the country's most interesting colleges and universities.

News, Podcasts, Blog, Photos and Videos: www.rit.edu/news

To read the latest news from RIT, subscribe to News & Events Daily at https://lists.rit.edu/mailman/listinfo.cgi/ritnews.