Updates

Ladies and Gentlemen: I hope that you and your students are having fun designing and building cars, and learning lots about hydrogen fuel cells as an energy source. If you follow automotive news closely, you may already know that a couple of major car manufacturers are planning to introduce a limited number of their fuel cell vehicles in selected markets this year, with significant fleets of them projected to be offered in less than a decade. Perhaps someday in the not too distant future, one of your students will be involved in designing and building your first fuel cell powered car. I will be sending you all periodic emails between now and the time of the contest to answer questions and hopefully provide you with all the information you will be needing as you prepare for the competition. I have received a couple of emails from a couple of you with questions about how to get additional supplies from fuelcellstore.com. I have also experienced problems in getting hold of the lady there, Kay Quinn Larson, whose contact information I believe I had passed on to you some time ago. In fact, I would have responded earlier to a couple of you about that, but I have been unable to contact her myself until just recently. At that time I found out that her company has been bought and sold a couple of times in the past 6 months. They are still in business, but she moved to Phoenix last fall, and now is preparing to move again to Southern California. Kay does a lot of traveling, so I have asked her to give me another person who is easier to get hold of at fuelcellstore.com, so that I could pass that information along to you all. So, if you wish to purchase more items from fuelcellstore.com, I would suggest you try Kyle Stewart at (619) 710-0758, extension 201. He can also be reached at kyle@fuelcellstore.com. Another question has arisen about the instruction’s reference to using banana jacks and a switch. These items are not included in the kit, but can be probably be found at any electronics store. Their purpose is to make the operation of the fuel cell car easier. They will make better connections than simply wrapping the wire around the two ends of the diode, as can be done. If you want to purchase the banana jacks, I would suggest taking the fuel cell with you to the store so that you get the right size. The switch then gets wired into one of the wires between the fuel cell and the motor so that you can turn the car on and off, rather than having it start running as soon as you make the electrical connections. As you are making your plans, I know that some of you will be traveling several hours to get here, and we will be starting our competition pretty early in the morning. We need to get started with the competition by 8:30 a.m., and in order to get set up, you may want to plan to get to campus by 8 a.m. I am hoping to conclude with the awards ceremony and have you all back on the road by 2 p.m. If you are planning to come the night before the competition and stay overnight, send me an email and I will provide you with some hotel options. Good luck with your preparations. I will be back in touch with you with more details in the next few weeks. If you have further questions as you are working on your cars, please don’t hesitate to contact me. The best way is probably through email, since I am in class until about 2 p.m. each day. Dale Jaenke, Department Head Automotive Technology Department Pennsylvania College of Technology