A more unusual type of race than those sponsored by the Automobile Touring Club of the UAE (ACTUAE), the Taqa GCC Hybrid-Electric Challenge is a race that encourages students in the region to participate in building competitors for this race. This year will hopefully be one of many of these challenges to come, sponsored by Taqa, the international energy company based in Abu Dhabi, and hosted by The Petroleum Institute, a university and research center also located in Abu Dhabi. The event is created by Global EEE, a US-based non-profit organization, and also supported by the Emirates Foundation.
This first challenge will be held at Abu Dhabi’s Al Forsan racetrack, and will give teams from some of the Middle Eastern nations a chance to develop racecars based on the theories that they have learned to combat energy technology challenges. The executive officer of Taqa even remarked: “The next generation of engineers will play a critical role in developing a sustainable economy for the UAE and the region.” This is an interesting comment because without competition, there cannot be growth, but if you don’t know what your competition is, you can almost never challenge yourself to your fullest potential!
The 11 participating teams will consist of 120 male and female students from schools like the Masdar Institute, United Arab Emirates University and the Abu Dhabi University, just to name a few. The goal is to design and race a one-man, lightweight hybrid car that has to follow certain design and safety rules as determined by the challenge sponsor. While the teams have car kits to start with, they have to build and tweak the cars to make them faster and more energy efficient. The overall goal seems to be winning the race, since the winning team will be acknowledged after two race days, but the real prize is the accomplishment of determining an effective strategy for the petrol generator. Teams will be judged on their cars’ fastest qualifying time and on the longest distances traveled on both the petrol-electric and electric-only motor configurations. In addition to the obvious time winner and these two determining factors, the teams will be awarded for technical innovation, sportsmanship, design and quality of workmanship.
This new (and hopefully annual) event should be quite an interesting challenge for these amateur engineers, but it will be interesting to see the results as, in the most simplest way put, these children are our future.
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