By Jason Koole
Western Herald
Over the past decade, oil prices have gone up, and more and more people have begun to search for alternative sources of energy to power transportation. In “Solar and Plug-in Cars” two Western Michigan University professors talked about different forms of alternative energy transportation.
The lecture was put on by the Friends of the Western Michigan Library and was on March 24 at 5 p.m. in room D109 of the Engineering and Applied Sciences building.
The lecture was given in two different parts. The first part was on the North American solar challenge and solar powered cars, and was given by Abraham Poot, an advisor for WMU’s Sunseeker Solar Car Team.
WMU has currently been competing in the yearly solar race since 1990. Building and modifying a car for each lecture.
“This was the first race that WMU got involved with,” Poot said. “We were in collaboration with Jordan College, which had some experience with solar arrays, so they built the solar ray, and we built the vehicle to carry it here.”
Throughout the lecture Poot also talked about the past and current designs of WMU’s solar cars and the varying factors between them. Around 25 students work on the car, and about 12 students participate in the actual race.
The second lecture transitioned from solar to hybrid energy. John Patten professor in the Department of Engineering and Manufacturing an has a Ph.D. in mechanical precision engineering.
“My presentation will contrast with Abe’s a little bit,” said Patten. “First of all, ours is based on hybrid vehicles.”
Patten’s presentation mainly focused on the plug-in aspect of the hybrid vehicles.
“What the key difference is that Abe’s car is solar powered, it gets all of the power from the sun. In our case we use plug-in power.”
Patten’s lecture also focused on using the wind to provide the electricity for the plug in power, and the differences between the solar powered aspects and the wind powered aspects. The other thing the presentation focused on was wind turbine power, and using that to power the battery pack of a Toyata Prius.
Patten also wanted to make note of the students that helped him with the project.
“I have had a number of students work with me on this project, most recently Nate Christensen worked with me now, and helped put together the presentation,” he said.
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