Ajax students at Pickering High School build electric car

AJAX -- Some Pickering High School students were off to the races recently to put the electric car they built from scratch to the test.

Kyle Faller, the president of the Pickering High School Electric Car Club, unveiled the result of many years of hard work on June 4 to an excited crowd of students at the school.

"We have been working on it for four years now and this is it," Kyle, 17, said to the crowd that day.

On June 6, the car competed in the Waterloo High School Electric Vehicle Challenge at the University of Waterloo, which encourages students to design and test their own electric car in an annual endurance competition.

We really built it from the ground up. Kyle Faller, Pickering High School Electric Car Club president

"We're really proud of it," Mr. Faller said of the car. "We really built it from the ground up. The bodywork is what we're most proud of."

He was also pleased to report the team used an AC drive system.

"Most other competitors will use a DC motor which is a little more basic -- you can pull the circuit offline," he said. "We've completely made this circuit from scratch. It was pretty much up to us to see if it was going to work or not, and luckily it does."

The team made it past inspection at the competition and got the car on the track but "unfortunately not too far in we had an issue with the chain tensioner and our inverter unit and were unable to complete the race," Kyle explained in an e-mail.

But the team didn't go home empty empty-handed and was awarded Rookie Team of the Year "for the innovation and utter impressiveness of our car," he said.

The school received a banner, as well as hats and expensive batteries, which the team is expected to use in the competition next year.

Kyle is graduating high school this spring, and will study mechanical engineering at the University of Waterloo in September. He said he's looking forward to being part of the Waterloo Formula Hybrid team.

He said "this car will always be my first, my baby, and ingrained in my memory along with the people I built it with as I move forward with my career goals in the automotive industry."

The car was built with the help of about $5,000 in sponsorship money.

Source: Ajax students at Pickering High School build electric car