Engineering
Portland Magazine
November 24, 2021
Photo by Brennan CrowderBy Haviland Stewart
ON A RACE TRACK in Wilsonville, Oregon, six University of Portland engineering students—otherwise known as the Pilot Speed Racing Team—stepped into their go-karts, strapped on their helmets, turned the ignitions, and approached the starting line, motors rumbling. The air smelled of gas and burning rubber. The flag rose. And they were off.
After a year of virtual classes, the students were eager to leave behind their makeshift classroom, trade in their textbooks for wrenches, and swap their Zoom calls for an in-person race around the track.
But racing rented go-karts powered by gasoline was really only a stepping stone. Their real goals were to build their own go-kart that runs entirely on clean energy and to race it in the Electric Vehicle Grand Prix (EVGP), a collegiate competition in Indianapolis hosted by Purdue University in September of 2021. UP’s team won first place! They also set the track’s all-time record.
Photo by Brennan CrowderLed by Shiley School of Engineering instructor Gregg Meyer and funded by Board of Regents member and alum Rich Baek (’93 MSEE, ’02 MBA), the team of engineering students—Madi Schalk ’23, Brendan Sample ’23, Kayla Medof ’23, Marc Raffaeli ’23, Sierra Repp ’23, and Aidan Kearney ’22—gained hands-on experience in the burgeoning field of clean energy.
The soft skills they worked on are important too. “When our students leave after finishing their senior year, they enter the workforce with technical skills, with teamwork skills, with multidisciplinary collaboration skills, with self-confidence, and with the determination that it takes to work on a team,” Meyer says. “I want them to be able to walk into that job on their first day of work and hit the ground running.”
Photo by Bob KernsAnd they disproved some racing-world stereotypes along the way. “I was actually really excited to do something like this because you don’t normally see a woman in a pit crew,” says Medof. “You don’t usually see a woman engineer taking the lead on the engineering or race team. I was excited when I saw the list for who got in, that we are 50 percent women and 50 percent males, which is not the usual ratio. And what I’m hoping to do in this setting is take initiative and take the lead, and show that I can do as much as they can.”
While having fun, making connections, and getting hands-on engineering experience are vital pieces of this project, healthy competition, while perhaps not the main goal, is also part of the program. “Honestly I walked into this just to have something to do this summer that seemed fun,” Repp says. “But now, obviously, my goal is to win.”
HAVILAND STEWART was Portland magazine’s summer intern. During the school year, she is the Living Section editor for The Beacon, University of Portland’s award-winning student newspaper.
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