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The MathWorks today announced that it will kick off year two of Challenge X, a three-year student engineering competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors Corporation (GM) , by hosting the participating university teams for a hands-on training program at the Company’s Natick, Mass. headquarters on August 11–13.  The training program will provide student teams with advanced classes and workshops on Model-Based Design using The MathWorks MATLAB® and Simulink® technical computing software, which is fundamental throughout the three-year competition.

Year two of the Challenge X competition requires the student teams to engineer the virtual propulsion vehicle design they developed in year one into a Chevrolet Equinox.  Students will use MathWorks tools to test and validate their powertrain and subsystem designs and to integrate them into the Chevrolet Equinox.  

“By using The MathWorks software and Model-Based Design throughout the three years of Challenge X, from model development in year one, to testing, verification, and implementation in years two and three, students are actually mirroring the same applications and processes that advanced automotive engineers use every day,” said Jack Little, president and CEO, The MathWorks.  “These students are not just participating in a ground-breaking competition, they are gaining state-of-the-art, hands-on technical knowledge that will better prepare them for industry.” 

Student teams participating in the Challenge X competition are charged with re-engineering a 2005 Chevrolet Equinox, a compact SUV that already provides competitive fuel economy, with three goals: reduce energy consumption, decrease emissions, and maintain the performance and utility features of the vehicle.  The MathWorks has donated its industry-leading software tools to the student teams to create, simulate, and analyze models for vehicle design and subsystem control.  In addition, The MathWorks provides technical support and mentoring to student teams throughout the three-year competition.  As part of the ongoing partnership, the student teams will co-present several papers with The MathWorks at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2006 World Congress. 

“Working in a single design environment using Model-Based Design proved essential to capturing our team’s collective insights and was key to our team’s performance during the competition,” said Matt Stevens, student team leader of the University of Waterloo, who took top honors in year one of the competition. “Because we have had great success using The MathWorks software, we are anxious to learn advanced methods that will bring our designs to life throughout the rest of the competition.”

The university teams participating in the 2005–2007 Challenge X competition are: