School Notes: School of Engineering & Applied Science
July/August 2013

Hybrid car races to win

Yale wasn’t supposed to win. Yale wasn’t even supposed to make it to the starting gate. But the Bulldogs Racing hybrid race car team, sponsored by the School of Engineering & Applied Science, beat the big guys at the Formula Hybrid competition in New Hampshire this April. Yale’s all-volunteer, bare-bones effort to build a hybrid gas-electric race car from scratch bested major automotive engineering powerhouses like the University of Michigan and Canada’s McMaster University. 

The race car sweep capped a winning season for Engineering student clubs: the Yale Undergraduate Aerospace Association’s Astro-Egg Lander team won first prize at the national Battle of the Rockets in April. Yale’s was the first team in the competition’s history to safely recover an egg—the YSS Eli Whitney rocket launched the egg 1,571 feet in the air then allowed it to float gently back to the ground. Yale’s Robotics Undergraduate Student Organization, a group of students starting from scratch in robotics, won the 2013 Best Design award at the Brown Robotics Olympiad on April 13 and traveled to the International RoboGames in California a week later.

Teaching prizes for Engineering faculty

Two professors from SEAS have won prestigious teaching prizes, one for undergraduate instruction and one for engineering teaching and mentoring. Eric Dufresne ’96, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and the director of the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design, received the Dylan Hixon ’88 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences. Students lauded Dufresne’s ability to make scientific and engineering principles come alive by assigning projects that allow them to apply what they’ve learned in real-world scenarios. 

Sekhar Tatikonda, associate professor of electrical engineering, was named winner of the inaugural Ackerman Award for Teaching and Mentoring. This new prize, made possible by a gift from Yale engineering alumnus Robert W. Ackerman ’60, recognizes a faculty member for having a positive impact on students and contributing to the educational mission of the school and the university.