Murray State Wins First Place at Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge

The 2018 Vehicle Challenge Competition at Danfoss in Ames, Iowa was a great success bringing together ten university student teams as well as judges and sponsors from eight NFPA member companies. The Vehicle Challenge is a competition that challenges students to design and build a bicycle using fluid power. The students that participated were highly creative and innovative and learned a great deal about fluid power. For many of them, it was their first experience with it, and they excelled!

Winners in the competition included:

1^st Place: Murray State University

2^nd Place: Cleveland State University

3^rd place: Milwaukee School of Engineering

Best Presentation: Milwaukee School of Engineering

Best Teamwork: West Virginia University

Best Workmanship: Western Michigan University

Best Reliability and Safety: Purdue

Outstanding Achievement: Western Michigan University

Sprint Race: Murray State University

Efficiency Challenge: Murray State University

Endurance Challenge: Milwaukee School of Engineering

Many thanks to the Vehicle Challenge sponsors – Danfoss, for hosting the competition for the second year in a row, SunSource and Eaton for serving as the parts suppliers, Lube-Tech for serving as the fluids supplier, and Parker Hannifin for their continued support of this program. Thanks go out to the judges of this competition as well – Jim Kaas of Iowa Fluid Power, Bill Hotchkiss of SunSource, Nathan Lord of Eaton, Brad Kramer of HUSCO, Matt Loeffler and Eric Holland of FORCE America, Jason Skarphol of HYDAC, plus Joe Budden, Travis Dillinger, and Aaron Darnell from Danfoss.

This program is a great way for industry to connect with talented, up-and-coming engineers. If you would like more information on how to get your company involved in next year’s event, or if you would like to get your local university to participate in this event, please contact me at (414) 778-3364 or lbeyer@nfpa.com.

2018 Fluid Power Vehicle Challenge Teams