EHS Seniors Build Hydrogen Car in Final Term

After spending most of the 2011-12 academic year’s second quarter working on a cardboard shelter for an A.P. physics project, seniors James Neville and Mickey Stone knew they wanted to do an engineering-related project for the school’s May term.

“(I) liked the idea of having an abstract challenge and trying to engineer a way to solve that problem,” Stone said.

After floating several ideas to teacher Michael Roddy, the pair settled on building a shoebox-sized, hydrogen fuel-cell powered car. The project is based on the parameters of the national Chem-e-Car Competition, which challenges high school students to build a hydrogen car. The competition’s rules were “too specific” for what Stone and Neville were looking to do however, so their project ultimately differed slightly from the competition's guidelines.

Both Neville and Stone will attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison next year and plan on studying engineering. While Stone has already decided to study chemical engineering, Neville wants to explore his options before settling on one area.

“(Engineering) gives you a really great opportunity to be creative by taking a known set of materials and laws and reapplying them in a different way so that you have something that is truly different,” he said.