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MSU engineering students win awards at human-powered vehicle races

Cara Duberstein, a senior in mechanical engineering at Montana State University, center, peddles through campus Sunday morning during the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge speed endurance event.
Cara Duberstein, a senior in mechanical engineering at Montana State University, center, peddles through campus Sunday morning during the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge speed endurance event.
Cara Duberstein, a senior in mechanical engineering at Montana State University, center, peddles through campus Sunday morning during the ASME Human Powered Vehicle Challenge speed endurance event. (ERIK PETERSEN/CHRONICLE)

This story fits in wit the technological focus of this blog, I think.

Montana State University students road away with several awards at last weekend’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers Human Powered Vehicle Challenge, the MSU News Service reports.

MSU’s ThunderCat team won five awards in the speed vehicle class, including second place in design, first place in women’s spring, first place in men’s spring, first place in the endurance race and first place overall.

Chronicle reporter Jolene Keller reported on the races in Monday’s paper. MSU professor Mark Archibald, the chairman of the human-powered vehicle competition, told the Chronicle that building the vehicles gives students more than just a chance to go fast.

“Building these vehicles and competing with them gives students an excellent chance to put it all in perspective,” he said. “It allows them to ask, ‘Does it really work?’ That is an important part of the process of becoming an engineer.”

Eighteen teams from different colleges competed in the three-day event, which featured races and challenges down Garfield Avenue and around the MSU campus.

It was the first time the event has been held at MSU and the sixth time MSU competed.