GEORGIA TECH
About
Georgia Tech’s EcoCAR team stands out as a unique and vibrant force in the world of sustainable automotive innovation. The univercunnsity has participated in five Advanced Vehicle Technical Competitions (AVTCs) in the last 25 years. As Georgia Tech’s sole car team that functions as a Vertically Integrated Program class, the EcoCAR team’s dedicated student members invest countless hours in the project, bridging the gap between education and real-world experience. This hands-on approach not only enriches the team’s academic journey but also cultivates valuable job skills for future careers.
Diversity is a cornerstone of the team’s identity. With members hailing from across the world, the team embodies a global perspective. The team is organized by a handful of graduate research assistants and passionate undergraduate students alongside three faculty advisors with decades of experience in mechanical and electrical engineering who guide and support the team. For Year 3, the team is committed to continued innovation in sustainable automotive technology, strengthened community engagement, and expanded outreach initiatives to inspire the next generation of engineers and leaders in clean transportation. Despite welcoming numerous new members this year, the team remains deeply engaged and cohesive, fostering a tight-knit community that thrives on collaboration and innovation.
Mission
Georgia Tech strives to produce a market-ready vehicle by the end of the four-year development period while training the next generation of highly skilled engineers in a positive and inclusive team environment.
The team will root industry practices into its core principles and practices to ensure students gain hands-on experience that will prepare them for the workforce and employment opportunities. Additionally, the team works hard to foster a competitive yet positive atmosphere to motivate students to work toward the team’s goals and a more sustainable and technologically advanced future.
Year 3 Goals
- We plan to foster an inclusive and diverse team environment that ensures all members feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute.
- We strive to provide team members with hands-on experience with industry-standard tools and software specific to the automotive industry so that they have an opportunity to apply their classroom lessons in the real world.
- We aim to increase the team's visibility and impact within the Georgia Tech community and the greater Atlanta area through outreach, events, and collaborations to introduce and educate audiences about electric vehicles, sustainable technologies, and equity in mobility.
Team Members
Dr. Michael Leamy
Lead Faculty Advisor
Georgia Tech
Dr. David Taylor
Faculty Advisor
Georgia Tech
Dr. Antonia Antoniou
Faculty Advisor
Georgia Tech
Equity in Mobility Challenge Project Feature
Mobility Barrier
Georgia Tech's Equity in Mobility (EiM) project aims to identify and address a mobility challenge faced by people with spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, or other neurological disorders when navigating vehicle access and use. Some examples of challenges include entering and exiting vehicles, maintaining focus during extended drives, or coping with stability and vibrations inside the vehicle. These factors greatly limit people’s mobility and independence, making transportation more burdensome and less accessible.
Community Based Organization Partnership
Through our partnership with NextStep, a community-based organization (CBO) that specializes in supporting people with brain and spinal cord injuries, we will gain deeper insights into the specific mobility barriers our selected stakeholders experience. Through the input of subject matter experts, our team will work to identify and propose a solution for some of the obstacles.
Equity in Mobility Goals
Our Year 3 goals are centered around a close collaboration with our CBO to ensure that our team prototype design addresses real-world needs of people with spinal cord or brain injuries (our stakeholders). This will be done by engaging with our CBO early in the process, to gather detailed input about the needs of our stakeholders which will inform our design process. Our engineering sub-teams will propose and create ideas for prototypes based on this input. Feedback from our CBO will be integral in refining the designs, ensuring that the solutions are effective and practical. In addition to this, a complementary and essential aspect of this collaboration is our outreach and social media engagement to increase community awareness about the mobility challenges people with neurological disorders experience.
We aim to achieve this through a series of team-building activities and workshops throughout the semester. Our team will combine technical solutions with the humanistic approach to foster inclusive and accessible solutions. As always, our external communications and social media will be informed, sensitive, and educational. This structured yet flexible approach follows the engineering design process and will ensure that we develop innovative, user-focused solutions that can be tested, improved, and ultimately deployed to make a meaningful impact on mobility for people with spinal cord injuries, brain injuries or other neurological disorders.
Get Involved
The Georgia Tech EcoCAR team operates through the Vertically Integrated Projects program. Students wishing to join the team can check out our team webpage and apply to our sub-teams through the linked Google Forms on the page.
New members are admitted to the team during official registration periods in Fall and Spring terms at Georgia Tech. During the semester, the team meets as a whole biweekly on Thursdays from 11:00 AM to 11:50 AM in Klaus 1440. Each subteam meeting holds a meeting in their own preferred location on Tuesdays from 11:00 AM to 11:50 AM.
Contact Information
Address
North Ave NW, Atlanta, GA 30332
Interested students can also reach out to Eric Gustafson, at [email protected] with any questions about opportunities on the team or the onboarding process.
