
SpaRRCky, Red River College’s battery-electric vehicle. (RRC.CA)
Mechanical engineering students at Red River College are off to the races in a battery-electric vehicle they designed and constructed.
The students are revving up for the 2018 Shell Eco-Marathon Challenge Americas in Sonoma, California this April, where they will race “SpaRRCky” against more than 1,000 student-made cars from other high schools, colleges, and universities.
“This is one of the best examples of applied learning,” said RRC president and CEO Paul Vogt, who received a sneak peek of the vehicle on Wednesday.
“When you combine industry-led training, with highly motivated students, and faculty expertise, you can achieve great things.”
RRC’s team will be competing in the prototype category with their battery-electric vehicle, and over the next few weeks the team will be testing each individual component and will begin piecing the vehicle together. Test drives will begin in November.
A search for a driver to pilot the vehicle will begin next week.