110 mpg = "5.1 Times the Average Mid-size Car"

That's right. 110 mpg, and that was on our first try. A really poor try at that. This morning, our Capstone Team was able to collect data from a coast around a course set-up in the west stadium parking lot. Despite many setbacks including a flat tire, dead battery, and an unforeseen pothole, one good run was recorded, calculated, and put us on the chart. Literally.
Our coach, Dr. Bowman, has a chart in his office with a list of all of the schools that competed in last year's competition with their best mpg for the competition day. All last semester, we were constantly reminded that "you have not posted an mpg; therefore, you have an mpg of 0 and are in last place at the bottom of my chart". Today we received the following email,

       "110 mpg sounds great to me.  This is better than Hawaii and UCLA.  The next school to beat is University of Houston.  They achieved 125 mpg.  I know you can do it.  I’ve moved your marker off the bottom of the list.  I am ready to move it higher."

If you have taken a look at the chart on the left, you will notice that while we did beat the mpg of two schools with our first run, both of them did not actually get a chance to race since their cars never got assembled at the competition. BUT, we have a working car!

The next step is to recharge the battery, remember to check the tire pressure before leaving the workshop, and develop our start-stop method of drive-coasting. 1800mpg, you don't stand a chance.