Challenge X Students Receive Donation From General Motors

Akron, Ohio, March 2, 2006 - University of Akron Challenge X students are making arrangements to attend the second round of the Challenge X competition thanks to a $6,500 check from General Motors. The donation will fund travel expenses for 10 students and one faculty adviser to travel to the General Motors Desert Proving Grounds facility in Arizona this June.

Scott Otterson, GM engineer and mentor for the team, presented the check.

“The Challenge X competition brings students and faculty into the real world of vehicle development and helps prepare a future generation of engineers so that they are better equipped to make a faster contribution to the engineering profession and the automotive industry,” Otterson says.

“We are very pleased to be a major sponsor of this competition, where we can help students with their engineering education so that they can hit the ground running when they graduate.”

University of Akron President Luis M. Proenza, Challenge X Electrical Team Student Leader Nathan Picot and College of Engineering Dean George K. Haritos accepted the check on behalf of the team.

“This generous donation goes a long way in helping us with the second year of competition,” says Picot. “General Motors has been a sponsor of this competition for the past two years and has donated resources, funding, staff time and a Chevy Equinox stock vehicle to our team. We greatly appreciate GM's financial support and commitment to the project.”

The University of Akron is one of only 17 universities in North America to compete in the Challenge X program, now in its second year. Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility is a competition series created by automotive industry, government and academic partners that challenges university-level engineering students to decrease total cycle emissions and energy consumption in a crossover vehicle, while maintaining or exceeding vehicle utility and performance. The competition is modeled after the General Motors (GM) Global Vehicle Development Process, and will closely follow current real-world automotive design and engineering practices.

The other 16 university teams competing in Challenge X include: Michigan Technological University; Mississippi State University; Ohio State University; Pennsylvania State University; Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology; San Diego State University; Texas Tech University; University of California, Davis; University of Michigan; University of Tennessee; University of Texas at Austin; University of Tulsa; University of Waterloo; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Virginia Tech and West Virginia University.

Additional information about Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility is available on the Web at http://www.challengex.org.

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