MSU EcoCAR 2 Team

After a year’s worth of hard work and dedication, the MSU EcoCAR team sent 12 students and their Faculty Advisor, Dr. Marshall Molen, to represent all of the work they had done since August. Our team really began working on EcoCAR 2, before EcoCAR 1 was even over. The time we spent on our proposal was an integral part of setting us up for success throughout Years One, Two, and Three of the competition. Year One is described by the EcoCAR 2 competition as the building and integration year of the 3 year process. We just finished up the ‘Design and Simulation’ portion that Year One encompassed and, after visiting Los Angeles for the Year One competition, we faired pretty well with the initial design portion. However, it wasn’t an easy process getting to that point.

Coming into the competition the MSU team was 4th place overall, out of 15 universities across North America. With this in mind, we got straight to work on making our presentation delivery the highest priority for everyone. As Business Leader, Lee Pratt put it, “There really wasn’t any time to rest. Once one person finished a presentation, they started helped everyone else with theirs. It was great teamwork.” And that truly is how our first few days in L.A. went. We would practice our presentations in front of the team and Dr. Molen, and after receiving feedback, we would rework and restructure our delivery until it was time to practice once again. This is a method the MSU team has held in place for quote a while and we plan to continue with that process.

Presentation and delivery is a key part of the EcoCAR program. They understand how imperative it is for engineers and business people to not only perform well, but also have the ability of conveying that performance in a time-constrained manner. Even though the work we accomplished in Year 1 was necessary to our completion of EcoCAR 2, presenting all of that work in 25-30 minute windows of time was necessary in our success in EcoCAR 2. After a week in Los Angeles, the team ended up representing Mississippi State University very well bringing home 16 total trophies, including first place overall! If you’d like to learn more about the team or the competition, please refer to this press release or visit the EcoCAR 2 competition and their Flickr site for all the photos from LA. Go Bulldogs!

We’re in the final stretch of preparations for EcoCAR 2 Year One Competition. Translation: There are about ten of the team members and group leaders that occupy Suite 2120 of CAVS night and day.

(at what point do you start calling a somewhere your place of residence again?)

Seriously though, this is one tough group of people dedicated to perfection in presentation delivery. For the past 2 weeks, we’ve been tweaking, and practicing the 11 presentations we will be giving next week in Los Angeles, Ca during Year One Competition. Why so much dedication? Well these eleven presentations have almost half of the remaining points for Year One hanging in the balance. No matter where any of the teams stand at this point in Year One, it all can change in the matter of four days.  

Wish us luck and keep up with our progress on facebook and twitter over the next week to see what all we’re up to in the land of the rich and famous!