Solar Car Team of the University of Michigan is firmly grounded in the traditions of hard work, dedication, and teamwork. Founded in the spring of 1989, the team has grown to include over 150 students from nearly every sector of the University, with the backing of more than 200 corporate and individual sponsors. The team took first place in GM Sunrayce USA in both 1990 and 1993, and currently is planning its 1999 title defense. Team members must be registered students at the University, willing to learn, and willing to spend at least five hours per week on the project. Faculty advisor: Gene E. Smith, 764-5158 S CT office, 100 W. E. Lay Auto Lab, 93 6-144 1.

Human-Powered Helicopter Team was created in 1991 to design, build, and fly the world's first human-powered helicopter. The manager of each of the team's task groups together with the team's project manager, technical manager, and advisor-make up the management committee, which coordinates the various elements of the team. A program written by the computer group, which calculated the power required to meet various parameters, confirmed that the project is feasible. Because the team is made up entirely of full-time students, turnover is high from semester to semester. The team is always in need of creative, hard-working people. Faculty advisor: William Ribbens, 764-9546 HPH office, 11 EPB, 747-3319.

Solar Electric Boat Team designs, constructs, and races a boat that can be up to six meters in length and powered by solar-charged batteries, in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Solar/Electric Boat Regatta in August. The regatta's two events are an endurance race, in which the solar arrays are attached and the object is to keep the boat running as long as possible; and a 200-meter sprint, in which the solar arrays are not attached and the object is to complete the course as fast as possible. The sprint is the U-M team's focus. Faculty advisor: William Vorus, 764-8341.

Society of Automotive Engineers is dedicated to giving engineering students the opportunity to apply the knowledge they gain in school to a real-life engineering project. SAE sanctions projects requiring people from many backgrounds and concentrations. The design, construction, testing, and development of all SAE projects are handled only by students. The society has a fully tooled machine shop for these projects, giving future engineers the chance to let their creativity flow without the confinement of a classroom. In addition to hands-on engineering experience, the society also offers biweekly meetings, technical presentations, and plant trips. Faculty advisor: Thomas Gillespie, 936-1064 SAE office, 102 W. E. Lay Auto Lab, 936-0417.

The Student Space System Fabrication Lab (S3FL) at the University of Michigan College of Engineering is dedicated to providing practical hands-on interdisciplinary experience for students through the design and development of exciting aerospace projects as part of their overall academic preparation.

The Field Emission Get-Away-Special Investigation is a student project to design, build, and test a self contained Space Shuttle experiment testing Field Emitter Array (FEA) technology as a means of electron emission for spacecraft charge control.

Off-road racing is a punishing test for automotive products. So the Society of Automotive Engineers, through its student chapters, conducts the Baja Racing program, challenging participants to design and build vehicles that can take on rough terrain, climbing, accelerating, and maneuvering, and endure more punishment, than a highway could provide. With support from a number of sponsors, Michigan Engineering's Baja team is a regular competitor, building off-road vehicles that demonstrate a superior level of mechanical design, safety and endurance, and the ability to take on rugged landscape. Yet another part of the competition requires the team to present a polished engineering sales presentation.

Throughout each semester, the Michigan Concrete Canoe team works together to design, fabricate and race a canoe made from concrete. The team then races its canoe in various sprint and slalom events as part of an annual collegiate competition. A team's success depends not only on its performance in the race but on the fabrication and presentation of the canoe. The American Society of Civil Engineers' student chapter oversees this project, which promotes the design of new concrete mixtures and encourages the involvement of undergraduates in advanced research, project management and intercollegiate competition.

This project assembles a team that must design, build and race a small formula car that's high-performance, low-cost and easy to maintain. In an annual race conducted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), judges rate the cars on their safety, cost, design and presentation, as well as their performance in a series of events including acceleration, skidpad, autocross and endurance. The SAE formula-car competition is the largest engineering student competition in the world, attracting teams from 140 universities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Korea, Japan and Venezuela.

The principal objective for this team is to make innovative use of materials, hydrodynamic design, buoyancy, propulsion and underwater life-support in the design of a human-powered submarine -- these are technologies and problems that have intrigued and puzzled engineers for more than 200 years. The secondary objective is to increase public awareness of underwater technology. The highlight of the team's work is the biannual International Submarine Races (ISR), held in an indoor tank -- one of the world's largest -- at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The competition dates to 1989 and, today, attracts competitors from around the world. In 2001, the team took first place among two-person submarines in the 6th ISR.

The Mars Rover program is an ongoing research project in which a student team designs, builds and tests prototypes of manned rovers for use in a human mission to Mars. A Michigan Engineering team designed and built one of the world's first prototypes, called "Everest," basing it on an Army FMTV cargo truck. If a crew of four were to reach the Martian surface, Everest would be able to carry them up to 1000 kilometers. The team has tested Everest at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah and at a Michigan rock quarry.

Yet another highly visible undertaking, the Steel Bridge project assembles a team from the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). This team designs and builds a working scale model of a steel highway bridge. The completed structure must sustain a vertical load of 2,500 pounds and a lateral load of 50 pounds. Judges rate each entry on speed of construction, weight, efficiency and aesthetics. The Michigan Steel Bridge team won the 2003 National Student Steel Bridge Competition, finishing first in a field of 44 competitors. More than 150 teams participated in regional competitions leading up to the final event.