Students Competing in Race for Knowledge during Three Events in May at IMS
April 29, 2017 | By Paul Kelly, IMS
The Greatest Month in Racing is packed with competition during May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it’s not just for the Verizon IndyCar Series and the Mazda Road to Indy ladder series.
Three groups that use motorsports as a tool to teach STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) concepts and promote competition among young people are conducting races during the Month of May at IMS – GreenpowerUSA, NXG Youth Motorsports (Nexgeneracers) and the evGrandPrix (Electric vehicle Grand Prix).
Future race drivers and engineers of tomorrow will first be on track at the Racing Capital of the World on Monday, May 1 for the GreenpowerUSA race, followed by NXG Youth Motorsports on Saturday, May 13 and the evGrandPrix on Tuesday, May 16 and Wednesday, May 17.
Here’s an overview of the programs competing in May at IMS (in chronological order):
GreenpowerUSA – Monday, May 1
Greenpower started in the United Kingdom in 1999, providing students with a project-based learning environment that leverages the excitement of motorsports. The success of the initiative in the UK and the U.S. pilot led to the formation of GreenpowerUSA in 2014 in Huntsville, Alabama, where the program remains headquartered today.
Students participate in the GreenpowerUSA program in two divisions. The Goblin division is for grades 3-6. The F24 division is for students from grade 7 through junior college. The F24 students will race in electric cars May 1 on the 14-turn, 2.439-mile road course at IMS that will host the INDYCAR Grand Prix on May 12-13.
GreenpowerUSA started with six participating schools in 2015, mainly in the Huntsville area, and is projected to expand to more than 170 schools involving approximately 3,200 young men and women throughout the United States by the end of 2017, said Jacob Boyett, president of GreenpowerUSA.
Twenty-eight teams of approximately 12 students per team will race in the Greenpower Electric Car Challenge on May 1 at IMS, with each team designing, building and tuning their electric cars, which are powered by two 12-volt batteries powering a 24-volt motor. This is the organization’s first competition at IMS.
One team will travel from the United Kingdom to race at IMS, with the other 27 teams from U.S. states including Indiana, Ohio, California, FloridaUtah and Alabama. The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) helps to organize and administer the series of races across the country, which take place during a schedule that matches the school year and culminates with the season finale at IMS.
“The race at IMS is the pinnacle of where all these cars want to be,” Boyett said.
GreenpowerUSA races consist of two 90-minute heats, with the winning team having covered the greatest distance in that time. Siemens PLM Software is the title sponsor and technology partner of Greenpower, providing design and analysis software to support many of the engineering and technology components of the program.
Racing is the culmination of a complete STEM-based curriculum offered to schools through the GreenpowerUSA program. This curriculum also includes liberal arts components, as students must make presentations about their vehicles and technology at events.
“You can take this from the whiteboard and computer by teaching them the geometry and math concepts there, and then walk over to the car and actually apply those same concepts to putting the car together or rearranging and customizing that car,” Boyett said.
Greenpower also has a partnership with the School of Engineering and Technology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), which is an event sponsor and is offering scholarships to GreenpowerUSA participants interested in pursuing engineering and technology degrees at IUPUI.
NXG Youth Motorsports (Nexgeneracers) – Saturday, May 13
NXG Youth Motorsports was founded in 2006 by African-Americans Charles Wilson and Rodney Reid, who raced karts and cars in the 1980s with the dream of competing in the Indianapolis 500. They didn’t reach that goal due to struggles finding sponsorship, so they then turned their focus on helping predominantly minority youth become conscientious drivers through exposure to motorsports.
Boys and girls ages 11 to 15, primarily from areas with limited exposure and access to motorsports, participate in the driving programs presented by NXG Youth Motorsports and sponsored by Lucas Oil Products. The majority of participants hail from the Indianapolis area, with a few competitors from as far away as Texas and Maryland.
The NXG Motorsports Academy consists of three progressive levels. The first level introduces participants to motorsports. Level 2 introduces vehicle dynamics and competitive driving techniques in gas-powered karts powered by 200cc Honda engines, while Level 3 consists of advanced competitive driving, culminating in participants’ first race.
All three levels include STEM-related education and English and critical thinking assignments revolving around motorsports. Each level takes place over two weekend days, with four hours of instruction in the classroom and on track each day.
“The program is designed for a boy or girl who hasn’t driven anything, not a go-kart, not a mini-bike,” Reid said. “We take them from 0 to 45 mph, as that’s the maximum speed of our karts. We pride ourselves on being very patient, very tolerant and very safety-conscious.”
NXG Academy participants who want to continue into advanced competition then are reviewed by Reid and his crew. Up to 10 competitors are selected to race in the NXG Grand Prix series, which consists of eight to 10 races from April through September on temporary road courses at IMS, the Indiana State Fairgrounds and Purdue University.
The Verizon IndyCar Series point system is used as a model for competition in the NXG Grand Prix series, which uses rolling starts and the IndyCar points system, for example. But the NXG Grand Prix series features some unique elements, such as inverting the field for the second race during each event weekend to give every participant a chance for victory.
A season points champion is crowned. But Reid said the two most important awards are Driver of the Year and Most Improved Driver.
The Driver of the Year is the most prestigious award, presented to the competitor who not only fares well on track but also makes the most progress in grasping the STEM-related concepts of the program. The Wilson Cup, named in memory of program founder Wilson, also is presented to the driver who shows the most sportsmanship and a good attitude.
“It has not gone to the champion so far,” Reid said of Driver of the Year. “If you get some kid who has a spark or during the midseason it all clicks in for him or her and they have some really dynamic races, qualified well or made really good passes on course and understands STEM, that’s what we reward.”
evGrandPrix – Tuesday, May 16 and Wednesday, May 17
The Hoosier Racing Tire Student evKarting World Finals will take place May 16-17 in high school and college divisions on a temporary, technical road course behind Tower Terrace in the IMS infield. The event is the pinnacle of the evGrandPrix program organized and run by Purdue University’s Motorsports program.
Sixteen to 18 teams are expected to race in the sixth annual competition for the college division, which races May 17. Teams are expected from the University of Oklahoma, defending champions Kennesaw State University, Purdue, Ivy Tech and a college in Quebec among the entrants.
Nearly 20 teams, up from eight teams in 2016, are expected to race in the second annual high school competition May 16. Most of the teams hail from Indiana high schools.
Participants in both divisions design, build and tune their karts through a curriculum based on MSTEM3, a kindergarten-through-college program. Lithium-ion batteries power the college division machines, with deep-cell marine batteries powering the high school karts.
Competitors in both divisions focus on STEM-related concepts in the classroom and on track. But the program also entices “non-gearheads” since each team must develop and and make presentations to local businesses to attract sponsorship, develop and execute plans for equipment procurement and purchasing, execute project management timelines and more.
“It helps the college students because it gives them a lot of hands-on activity so they know how to do engineering research,” said Danny White, director of motorsports and the K-12 Partnerships program at Purdue. “At the high school level, it’s interesting because it’s a college and career readiness STEM program. The high school teacher uses the go-kart in the classroom as a platform to teach things like algebra, trigonometry, geometry and a lot of liberal arts relevant to that kart.”
MSTEM 500, a college and career fair for middle school and high schoolers, also will take place May 15-16 at IMS as part of the evKarting World Finals. More than 1,300 students are expected to participate, with many high schoolers attending Tuesday, May 16 also staying at the track to watch the high school karting competition that day.
Competition at IMS and assistance from Hoosier Tire, Top Kart, General Motors Foundation, Don Schumacher Racing and a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense have helped the Purdue program continue to expand at the college level and spawned the creation of the high school program last year. White also works with the NXG Youth Motorsports program that’s also competing in May at IMS and its director, Rod Reid.
But that’s just the beginning. The program is expanding into the United Kingdom in the fall, and White said future programs for Masters competitors and for autonomous vehicles also will be announced in May.
“The next disruptive technology we’ll see in the automotive industry is autonomous vehicles,” White said. “It’s coming. That’s the next wave of technology that’s going to excite people. We’re going to start training the engineers of tomorrow now.”