The Penn State Advanced Vehicle Team began competing in the first leg of EcoCAR 2: Plugging In The Future competition over the past year. The three-year competition includes fifteen North American teams that receive a donated Chevy Malibu, which students work on in order to lessen the negative impact that the car has on the environment. The catch: they have to retain both its performance and consumer appeal.

The team traveled to Los Angeles last week and brought home six trophies recognizing their presentation of what they’ve done over the last year. The Penn State team has begun their work by designing the advanced propulsion technologies that they will incorporate into the Malibu over the coming two years.

The team was awarded the second place prize for the Overall Outreach Award, as well as the Best Website Award and Best Clean Cities Collaboration Award, which was given to them as a result of their work with Pittsburgh’s Executive Director of Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities, Rick Price.

Faculty advisor and PSU Applied Research Laboratory department head Gary Neal won the National Science Foundation Outstanding Long-Term Faculty Award after being nominated by the team for his “dedication to [them] and for his focus on their education as future engineers.”

“I’m honored that they nominated me,” Neal said. “These guys have really come so far this year.”

To top off the laundry list of recognitions that the team received were third place trophies for Best Electrical Presentation Award and Best Mechanical Presentation Award. For their work over the past year, the team was awarded $12,500 in prize money that will be applied to the implementation of their design.

They have a few weeks to celebrate the fruits of their labor before it’s time to get back to the EcoCAR 2 competition. In the next few weeks, General Motors will deliver the team their Chevy Malibu, and then it’s time to get back to work.