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The ChemE Car competition, organized by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), challenges students to create vehicles powered entirely by chemical reactions. These cars must cover specific distances, relying solely on the energy produced by these reactions as their "fuel."

In 2013, Stanford’s ChemE Car Team secured 5th place out of 10 teams at the Western Regional Conference held in San Diego, CA. Their car was powered by a redox reaction involving magnesium and lemon juice, while its stopping mechanism was a vitamin C-iodine clock reaction. 

You will learn a lot of technical skills, from the chemistry behind our reaction, to the mechanical engineering of building the car chassis, to even some electrical engineering skills in putting together the starting and stopping mechanisms. You will learn how to design, build, test, and refine an invention through experimentation. And by the end of the project, you will have built a complex engineering product from scratch, learning all sorts of other skills along the way. 

Additionally, through creating a poster together and presenting it at a conference, you will be able to practice effective communication and presentation. By helping write the technical report, you will have exposure to a type of writing and reporting that is very useful in industry. And you can add Chem-E-Car to your resume to demonstrate your experience with hands-on engineering to future employers.

And most importantly, you get to be a part of an engineering student team, make friends, and have a lot of fun putting a complicated project together!

Areas of interest

  • Chemical Engineering 
  • Material Science 
  • Electrical Engineering 
  • Programming 
  • Mechanical Engineering