A Northern Illinois University team will compete in a championship in Detroit next weekend.
This time, it’s not for football.
NIU’s Supermileage Team from the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology will compete next week in the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2015. The global program challenges high school and college student teams to design, build and test the most energy-efficient vehicles.
The NIU group finished in the top 10 in similar events every year since 2010. That includes three third-place finishes.
Lindsey Dodis is the team’s president. She says the cars in the races are considered prototypes and not necessarily street legal, but there’s knowledge to be gained from them.
“A lot of the things that these teams come up with can easily be transferred into a real vehicle.”
Dodis says this competition is considered a dry run for the team as they prepare for the collegiate-level SAE Supermileage Competition.
The team finished seventh last year in those events, where their vehicle traveled more than 13-hundred miles on one gallon of gasoline.
The NIU Supermileage Team also recently filmed a commercial with Jay Leno in Los Angeles. The group was chosen after Shell sent an e-mail to teams who drove more than 500 miles per gallon at last year's Shell Eco Marathon race.
NIU's team was one of a handful that responded and one of two teams chosen for a Skype interview with Leno. The commercial was filmed to advertise for this year's race in Detroit.