Step 1: Build Supercar. Step 2: Get Driver’s License.

Guest Post by Dr. J

Looking back on six years of city and suburban biking in and around Philly, the biggest engineering accomplishment I can think of is repairing a derailure – a few little sprockets that that pushes a chain an inch or two at a time.  In the heat of the moment, I felt like MacGuyver, master of gear and chain, doctor of human transport!

Meet Team EVX

Spend one afternoon here, friends, and you will leave profoundly humbled.

They teach sophisticated stuff in this oversized garage…chain of command, internal leadership, internal combustion, hierarchies, skills in organization, personal communication, hybrid and green technology, public speaking, how to manage your time, and how to build a web presence and an international network.  In the process, they attack the world’s current dependency on fossil fuels, break new mechanical ground and build cars that might be worth 10 million dollars.  More on that, after the break…

The prize mentioned above is the “Progressive Automotive X Prize (http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/), and it is currently at the bullseye target of 43 teams that have qualified to enter vehicles in open competition.  The prize is dedicated to developing a highly fuel-efficient, attractive car that can be mass-produced.  97 Teams originally put together entries (while things were still at the design stage), and in October they entered a gauntlet that included an evaluation from a team of automotive experts, which resulted in more than half of the entries being culled from the herd.

Teams that passed the first cut include Ivy League universities, small but successful manufacturing companies around the world and Tata motors – India’s largest vehicle manufacturer with almost 9 BILLION dollars in annual revenues.

And one West Philly high school.

Just another day at the office, trying to change the world before graduation

The West Philly Hybrid X Team  (Team EVX) has been around since the 1990s, and has built cars that are revolutionary for two reasons:  One, they unapologetically utilize hybrid, biodiesel and electric technology in performance automobiles.  Two, they were built by people who were barely old enough to drive.  You can certainly add in as a critical addendum that these students have, as a generalization, had to withstand and rise above more than most in the country.  You could add that a demographer might say they are facing a challenging future at a time when challenges are running high throughout the country.

But you don’t have to – the team doesn’t, nor do they need to.  They got on the Today Show and bested opponents with deeper pockets and more academic laurels on the strength of their skills.

The team EVX workshop is housed in the West Philadelphia High School Academy of Automotive and Mechanical Engineering, and as of right now about 150 students, alumni and faculty come through on a weekly or daily basis to tackle paint jobs, drive train installations, rebuilds, frame welds and anything else that you would need to turn hunks of metal and pools of chemical into a fully operational, environmentally-friendly and efficiency-minded car.

EVX team Director Simon Hauger is a pretty magnetic personality.  He and his teaching team exude focus.  They are math, science, English and automotive engineering teachers who have dedicated a lot of the past decade to the EVX team dream, a task not only involving building cars to compete for millions of dollars against multimillion dollar companies but also making sure that students sign in during attendance, stay on task and keep their grades up.  The team of teachers and guides – Team Manager Ann Cohen, Auto Faculty Guru Jerry DiLossi, Instructor Ruth Donnelly, Coordinator Ron Preiss, Web Developer Jeremy Profitt, and Environmental Coordinator Kathleen Radebaugh –hail from different fields and different generations, and must consolidate diverse technical and social skills to help the students of the team build their futures as well as brand new cars.

Their past hits include converting lots of cars into hybrids from scratch – A Jeep Wrangler, a Toyota Highlander, a Ford Escape – that allowed students to get their hands on cutting edge alternative fuel technologies (a lot of these were fabricated 5-10 years ago).  Then there was an all-electric Saturn car which, based on a 7-year old donated frame, donated batteries, donated drivetrain and tires, won the national Tour de Sol competition in 2002 (and then again in 2005 and 2006, when the contest closed for good).  Now, they have the X-prize in their sites, and are building a true hybrid supercar – Named the K1 Attack – for that purpose.

While the hybrid entry car for the X Prize is a serious draw for attention and work hours for everyone on the team, not even that is everything on the daily task list.  When I visited them, the team was receiving what might be considered the American Automotive equivalent of a Populist Prime Minister:  Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Autoworker’s Union, arrived with a few other UAW reps to address the class.

More likely to talk with elected officials, industry bigwigs and union organizers, Gettelfinger was there to encourage the students, and to put a little more gas in Team EVX’s tank.  After hearing student presentations and doing a short talk himself, Gettelfinger presented the team with a check from the UAW for $10,000.  Then commenced 45 minutes of pure shop-talk.

After these dignitaries left the workshop area, the students and teachers gathered for what was promised to be a 12 minute meeting.  Hauger took to the front of the room:

We need to figure out a way as adults to support you guys better, so that you have more ownership of this team.  This is the goal.  But even more important – when you leave this place…most employers aren’t going to care about whether you remember the Pythagorean theorem or the quadratic formula…as exciting as that is, the point is that at least as important as your academics is what people call soft skills – how you present yourself, how you articulate your thoughts succinctly, how organized you are, how well you lead, how critically you can think – those are what make folks more successful.  So if you have an opportunity to learn how to be a leader now, and take ownership which not only makes the team better, it makes you better prepared for what’s after high school.

“We’ve got to build these two cars.  We’ve got to show people what we’re capable of…and what you’re capable of.  And we’re going to slow down and make sure we take care of the other things that are important.  We’ve got a TREMENDOUS amount of work to do.  If I don’t have that car ready for the gentleman who’s coming Jan 4^th, I’ll be here over Christmas.  I don’t wanna be here over Christmas…help me out here!

As the team huddle continued, they talked about keeping future meetings short to give the students more time to focus.  They’re going to be working late Tuesdays and Thursdays, and all day on Saturdays.   They expect a lot of the students on the team.  They are training them to be leaders and almost icons to the rest of the school, and to the community at large.  They want them to come to the regular Toastmasters meetings.  They want them to apply to and graduate from college, and to get jobs that pay well and utilize their skills.  They want them to develop the skills that will make them successful in any field, not just automotive design. That’s a lot for a teenager.

Or, as Hauger puts it:

You’re old enough, you’re leaders on this team, you set an example at this school, we expect you not to take advantage of the situation.  It’s just that simple.

They then break from the meeting, and a few students head out to manage the installation of a hybrid drive.  Others start writing contact letters to Gettelfinger and other visitors and donors of the shop.  Supervisors kick into gear and the garage starts humming again.

Looking around, it’s surprising how well the room functions, considering the constant turnover of students.  Senior students on the team, like Sekou Kamara, have honed a system to keep things moving.  “We sort of find their strengths – have them do a little bit of everything – and then when we discover their strongest point we kind of push them in that direction and put them on that part of the team, and help them with whatever they need.”

That involves everything from public outreach to paint jobs, from developing a web presence to mechanical engineering.  It’s a transition that Sekou has seen occur over and over:

Some of the students when they start here are like “what you want me to do a speech here, in front of all these people?!?”  But then when speak, and when they hear themselves, they actually realize they’re great speakers.  Sometimes you have to kind of throw them into the fire like HERE!  You’re doing this!  And then they end up doing it and end up really liking it.  And now, we’ve got a lot of really great speakers on the team.  I’m way more comfortable.  And I have no problems with that anymore.  I’m all for it.

It’s easy to forget that this role diversification happens out of necessity.  The EVX team is based on donations, and setting off on this quest without major corporate or academic sponsorship, it has to make the most out of every dollar.  They build their network constantly, one link at a time.  “Every time we have a guest come here, we have a few people give speeches.  If you give us something, we’ll give you something.  Even if you don’t give us something, we’ll give you something.  We are just out there to help.” Says sophomore Alexis Bland who has only been with the team for a few months and speaks with surprising clarity and insight, as do many on the team.  I doubt it’s a coincidence…

The next phase of the competition is the technical qualifiers, which begin in Spring 2010.

Student members of Team EVX pose with Gettelfinger & Co.