Progressive Automotive X PRIZE

DASH+ Grand Prize Experience in Michigan

Monday, July 19, 2010

 

Greetings from Motor City!   

 

The DASH+ Grand Prize Experience trip has gotten off to a great start!  This morning, EDV Technologies team members Kelvin Noronha, Jake Moghtader and Nikhil Shinday wowed our panel of auto experts with the presentation of their dashboard of the future.  The panel was particularly impressed by the dashboard’s unique feature which awards Green Points for eco-friendly driving. The auto industry experts recognized the importance of incentivizing more fuel-efficient driving and leveraging shared information through social networks. Again and again, the panel expressed their admiration of the team’s hard work and good thinking.

Following the presentation , the panel engaged in a thoughtful Q&A session with the students.  The team was asked about:

 

 

 

 

· Their motivation for developing such a forward-thinking design

·  The unintended consequences of a system that rewards drivers for particular driving habits

· What types of audience research was conducted by the team

 

After the panel, the team was joined by leading battery expert Ann Marie Sastry of Sakti3 for a private luncheon where the conversation focused on innovation.  During the lunch, the team learned about Dr. Sastry’s experience in the industry and received valuable feedback and advice.

 

Later in the afternoon, the team toured The  Henry Ford with an archivist who walked the team through the history of the automobile.  At the conclusion of the tour, he reminded the students that the future of the museum depends on continued innovations from creative young minds like the EDV Technologies team.  They also had the privilege of stopping by to check out their own work in our Under the Hood, Drive Change Today exhibit, which is another key part of our national education outreach, also funded by the U.S.Department of Energy.

 

Next the team explored the museum's Greenfield Village for a ride on a real Model T Ford, a vintage steam engine, and an exploration of the lives of past inventors, including Thomas Edison and the Wright brothers.

 

We’ve had a great first day here in the Detroit area.  Check back tomorrow for an overview of the day’s activities. 

Congratulations to EDV Technologies, DASH+ Winner!

After tallying more than 10,000 online votes that were cast from all 50 states, EDV Technologies from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, CA, has been named the DASH+ Grand Prize winner!

EDV (El Diseño Verde) team members Jack Moghtader, Nikhil Shinday and Kelvin Noronha, with mentor Kevin Schantz, created a dashboard concept that continuously calculates maximum fuel economy. The dashboard alerts the driver of environmental impact and awards GreenPoints for eco-friendly driving.

 

You can see the team’s winning dashboard design, technical plan and pitch video at www.fuelourfuturenow.com/contest.

The team learned of their win today on live television during KEY News This Morning, a Santa Barbara morning show. Afterwards, they enjoyed a celebratory breakfast with Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider and Goleta Mayor Eric Onnen, as well as their high school principal Mark Swanitz and a representative from the Santa Barbara School District.

In July, EDV will head to Detroit for an exciting VIP experience where they will pitch their ideas to automotive industry representatives, see environmental professionals at work, learn more about college opportunities and meet competing teams in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE.

I’d also like to extend congratulations to our semi-finalist teams: DASH Tech of the Henry Ford Academy in Dearborn, MI, and Harker Innovation of the Harker School in San Jose, CA. These teams are an inspiration and proof that our nation’s students will pave the way for innovation and drive change across industries. Thank you to everyone that helped drive change today with the DASH+ teams.

--Mitch Aiken, Director of Education, Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE

LEGOLAND, Philadelphia Style

 

LEGO Education has built an impressive display here at the  National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference in Philadelphia.  In the LEGO exhibit space, teachers and students can explore the wonderful array of LEGO products designed to enrich the study of Science and Engineering.

 

 

 I got hands-on practice with alternative vehicles including......

Human powered (By hand crank!)

 

Wind Powered.....

 

And Solar Powered.... 

 

Last night, we returned to the Franklin Institute for a screening of IMAX HUBBLE 3D an amazing documentary which chronicles the latest (and final) shuttle mission to the Hubble space telescope, to make necessary repairs and upgrades that should extend the Hubble’s productive life by years.  This great documentary premiers this weekend and I encourage you to see it in an IMAX theatre near you.

Pillar in the Carina Nebula...   

 

The Butterfly Nebula....
 

Fueling Our Future In Philadelphia

 

The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE  Education team is presenting at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) conference in Philadelphia this week.  Our education program and Fuel Our Future Now (FOFN) website resources are featured in the Discovery Education booth on the exhibit floor, visited by a steady stream of inquisitive science teachers each day. The theme of the conference this year is Connecting Science Past with Science Future so discussions range from Ben Franklin’s kite to….The Dashboard of The Future of course. Appropriate topics for FOFN, a US Department of Energy sponsored program!

 

 Our DASH+ contest challenges teams of high school students nationwide to design a dashboard that will help drivers save fuel by providing feedback on how their driving is affecting their fuel efficiency. The entries have all been submitted, and we are currently making some tough decisions -- selecting the best of the best to advance to the next level. After a round of judging by auto and energy experts, the top three entries will be online at Fuel Our Future Now in May for online voting.  I’m encouraging the teachers here to have their students visit the site and vote for their favorite dashboard. I’ve also suggested that they make an assignment out of it and have their students justify their selections based on the science behind the designs. It is school after all.

Tonight we were treated to a screening of Discovery’s new documentary series, life.  The evening was hosted by The Franklin Institute, where we also had a chance to reflect on transportation of the past.

 

Tomorrow we visit Lego Education Land, right on the NSTA convention floor.  Stay tuned!

Fun in Detroit

We are having a great time in Detroit, sharing the DASH+ opportunity with high school students and their teachers, and planning the grand prize experience for the ultimate winners of the DASH+ competition.We are here for Education Day at the NAIAS, and getting to take in all of the sights and sounds of the Auto Show.

We spent the day yesterday visiting the College for Creative Studies and The Henry Ford.We were able to spend time with representatives of the Transportation Design Department of The College for Creative Studies seeing the state of the art facilities where students learn the art of car design and create scale models of their designs. The students are incredibly skilled and talented and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of their designs on the road in the future. In four fast -paced hours at the Henry Ford, we got a small sampling of the vast offerings and facilities of the museum complex, and the auto assembly plant.

We saw incredible artifacts from the history of innovation in America, from chair design to steam locomotives to a modular home designed by Buckminster Fuller in 1946.  So the museum is by no means just about cars, but there are plenty of those on display as well, going all the way back to Henry Ford’s first prototype of the Model T.  We also explored Ford’s Rouge Plant where F150 trucks are assembled.  We toured a working assembly line that would surely impress Henry Ford today.  The plant also features an environmentally friendly green roof!

We are inspired by everything we saw yesterday and are currently brainstorming about sharing these experiences with the winning DASH+ team here in Detroit this summer.

Now we are on the floor of the Auto Show, in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE display area. We have an education corner here today, and are busy telling the hundreds of high school students in attendance about DASH+. There’s still time to enter the DASH+ competition. Teams must register by February 1, and entries must be submitted by March 1st.

Join our Team & Take the Challenge!

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE invites you to become a member of our team – our Carbonrally team.  We are excited to be leading a team on Carbonrally.com, a website that develops honor-based competitions that call for small changes, which lead to big impacts.

While X PRIZEs are focused on making big impacts, many supporters have asked how they can make a difference on a day-to-day level.  Even small efforts can have a huge effect.  Carbonrally not only challenges people to make these small changes, but it tracks the collective impact of these changes so that people can see exactly what they have accomplished. Bit by bit, based upon their participation, the Carbonrally community learns the connections between climate and lifestyle, and rack-up literally tons of carbon benefits along the way.

 

In addition to becoming a part of our Carbonrally team, we invite you to participate in the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE sponsored Lowrider Challenge.  This challenge helps participants to understand how to gain fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. 

We hope that you invest 5 minutes to accept our invitation to become a part of the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team and register to take the Lowrider Challenge.  

 

Here’s how it works:

 

To start:

1.    Join the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team

2.    Take the Lowrider Challenge and start saving fuel and reducing carbon emissions

 If you want to do more:

3.    Visit the Carbonrally Challenge tab to learn about and participate in more challenges.  A new featured challenge is posted every few weeks. Most challenges are easy, short-term actions, and are categorized by transport, school or office, home, food, wild card, and date.

4.    Do you have an idea of your own?  Carbonrally allows the public to propose great ideas for saving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.  The Carbonrally community votes on the best ideas to become Featured Challenges.  We want to sponsor and participate in lots of automotive-related challenges in order to educate the public about the immediate impact that they can have. Share your idea by visiting the Carbonrally Workshop page. Then, let us know that your idea has been posted by leaving a comment on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Team page and we will get out the word for people to vote on it.

5.    Do you want to know how the team is doing? Carbonrally tracks the collective impacts, which reveals the power of many people acting together to get the job done.  Visit Carbonrally.com to track our progress by teams, members, and locations.

6.    Invite friends, family, co-workers, or share broadly. The more people who participate on the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Carbonrally team, the greater difference we can make. 

 

Join our team and lead the charge to educate the public about how small changes can have a huge impact.

Fuel Our Future Now Introduced to Educators

www.FuelOurFutureNow.com was formally introduced to more than 12,000 teachers, science coordinators, curriculum planners, administrators, principals, teacher educators, industry representatives, and students from all over the country at the 57th Annual NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) National Conference on Science in Education in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on March 12-22, 2009.

 Exterior of Ernest N. Morial Convention Center

www.FuelOurFutureNow.com is a new, dynamic, online knowledge center inspired by the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE and created in collaboration with Discovery Education, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the X PRIZE Foundation.

 Brad Fountain at the Discovery Education Booth

In an interactive workshop on www.FuelOurFutureNow.com led by Brad Fountain, Manager of New Products, Discovery Education Network, participants learned how to fuel K-12 student curiosity about alternative energy sources, advanced vehicle design, climate change, and the future of transportation with engaging classroom resources connected to the Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Education Program. For example, the participants built and modified balloon-powered cars as part of a hands-on activity from Lesson 4 of the grades 6-8 curriculum, where students demonstrate the relationship between weight and fuel efficiency by constructing a model vehicle and conducting an experiment.

 Joel Treadwell photo of a completed balloon-powered car

Members from the Louisiana-based Progressive Automotive X PRIZE Registered Team Global-E were also present as Team Leader Carl Guichard discussed the reasons why they have entered three newly-designed Mainstream class vehicles in the competition, as well as their efforts to engage the greater New Orleans education community and to promote interest in science, technology, engineering, and math career development.

 Joel Treadwell photo of Carl Guichard addressing participants

In the days following the NSTA Conference there have been many articles and reviews of www.FuelOurFutureNow.com. Two of note include those appearing in the T.H.E. Journal and District Administration.

Flip the Switch for Earth Hour

 

 

The Progressive Automotive X PRIZE places a major focus on affordability, safety, and the environment. It is about developing real, production-capable cars that consumers want to buy, not science projects or concept cars. This progress is needed because today’s oil consumption is unsustainable and because automotive emissions significantly contribute to global warming and climage change.

 

Make a statement of concern about our planet and climate change by participating in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 28, 2009. Individuals, businesses, governments, and communities in over 2,900 cities and towns in 83 countries will switch off their lights at 8:30 PM local time for one hour, wherever they live on the planet earth. In fact, over 829 icons and landmarks around the world – the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing, Big Ben in London, the Empire State Building in New York, the Acropolis in Athens, the Colosseum in Rome, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Sydney Opera House, the Las Vegas Strip, and others – are expected to go dark to show their support.

 

Turn out. Take action.

How Do You Innovate in Today’s Economy?: The incentive2innovate Conference 2009

The X PRIZE Foundation is hosting the incentive2innovate Conference June 8 & 9 in New York City with partner BT Global Services and presented by the John Templeton Foundation and the United Nations. The i2i conference will highlight two powerful and significantly underutilized tools: OPEN COLLABORATION and INCENTIVIZED COMPETITION.  We are bringing together some of the world's greatest innovators to share best practices on how these tools can solve the challenges facing businesses, philanthropy and government. 

We will be welcomed to the conference by Amir Dossal, Executive Director, United Nations Office for Partnerships, and Peter Diamandis, Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation.  Day One, we will explore how open collaboration and opening doors to the global talent pool helps to power innovation and productivity with a presentation by Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World.  We will introduce the new McKinsey & Company report on incentive prizes “And the winner is...”: Capturing the Promise of Prizes” with McKinsey partner Paul Jansen followed by a panel discussion moderated by  Matthew Bishop, Chief Business Writer/US Business Editor, The Economist and  Co-Author of Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World.  Panel participants will include Peter Diamandis on “Making the Impossible Possible” and Dean Kamen, Founder, FIRST and President, DEKA Research & Development Corporation.  Day one will conclude with a keynote address on Open Source Media by Arianna Huffington,  Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief, Huffington Post.

Day two will continue the discussion with presentation tracks in healthcare, energy & the environment, global development and open innovation culture. The lunchtime keynote address will feature Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director, Office of Science & Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President of the United States and the day will conclude with a keynote address by Reid Hoffman, Founder, CEO and Chairman, LinkedIn.

 Registration is open to anyone but space will be limited to 350 attendees.  Sign up now for the opportunity to hear about cutting edge solutions to today’s challenges and a chance for unparalleled networking with your peers.

For more information about the incentive2innovate Conference 2009 and to register:  http://i2i.xprize.org/index.php

 

Join us for a FuelOurFutureNow.com Teacher Workshop!