Maroon on the Mall:
Smithsonian celebration brings MSU EcoCAR to nation’s front yard By Susan Lassetter Being in the shadow of the Washington Monument didn’t do much to help with the heat, but it did give Mississippi State’s automotive design team a prime location for its students to share their work as part of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
The storm knocked out power for millions of people along the East Coast and wreaked havoc on the outdoor Folklife Festival, which had to be shutdown for a day as crews worked to cleanup and rebuild damaged tents. Many tents, including the Mississippi State EcoCAR exhibit, were totaled.
More than half a million people from around the world visited the festival on the National Mall during its two-week run that coincided with the Fourth of July holiday and one of the worst heat waves in Washington, D.C.’s history.
“We didn’t know what to expect when we got to the Mall the day after the storm,” Torries recalled. “It looked like a tornado had come through. There was debris everywhere. The tents were in pieces with their support poles broken in half.”
“This is considered one of the largest tourism events in our nation,” Mississippi State President Mark Keenum said. “I am proud of our award winning EcoCAR team and the people who are here showcasing this wonderful vehicle and explaining to all the different visitors what MSU is doing to design the automobile of the future.” This year’s festival celebrated the 150th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Morrill Act, legislation that led to the creation of land-grant universities such as Mississippi State. Seventeen of these institutions were selected to participate in the event, of those only MSU had multiple projects chosen for display. Mississippi State’s Mobile Veterinary Clinic was displayed in the festival’s “Transforming Communities” area, while the university’s thermal imaging technology was included in the “Reinventing Agriculture” section. The EcoCAR—a student-designed plug in hybrid SUV that gets 118 mpg and has a 60-mile all-electric range—was part of the “Sustainable Solutions” area. “We had the first EcoCAR to be classified as a Smithsonian exhibit,” said Kim Torries of Biloxi, the team’s outreach coordinator. “That’s really awesome when you think about it.” Although it added an air of prestige to the vehicle, being a temporary Smithsonian exhibit couldn’t protect the car from Mother Nature. In addition to battling extreme high temperature for the festival’s duration, it also endured a severe thunderstorm that produced 70 mph winds in the Washington, D.C. area on June 29.
The EcoCAR tent collapsed, causing one support beam to fall across the car’s hood while another rested against its bumper. The fabric of the tent obscured much of the car leaving onlookers to wait with bated breath as event workers and team members lifted the ruined structure off the vehicle to see the scope of the damage. “Truthfully, it couldn’t have hit the car at a more perfect spot,” explained Matt Doude of Starkville, the former team leader. “In most vehicles, the hood would have buckled under the impact, but we had replaced our SUV’s standard hood with one made of carbon fiber. It’s probably the strongest point on the body of the car. We were very lucky.” The only damage to the car was a few scratches, dings and scuffs in the paint. Rather than detract from the exhibit, it actually made a good visual aid for the students explain the benefits of engineered materials, like the carbon fiber used in the hood. When the festival reopened July 1, members of the Mississippi State delegation, including those from the agriculture areas, banded together to rebuild the EcoCAR exhibit and have it ready for the Fourth of July crowds that were expected to start rolling in that afternoon. bagley.msstate.edu/momentum
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