Two years ago, I shared an idea with our undergraduate students — an idea that had a profound impact on my own journey as a chemical engineer. I told them about Chem-E-Car: a nationwide competition where chemical engineering students design and build a shoebox-sized car powered by chemical reactions. At my alma mater, Cal Poly Pomona, I had the privilege of helping revive the team. That experience not only shaped my engineering education, but it also helped lead me to Stanford.
Could we do the same here? I believed we could. All I needed were students bold enough to take on the challenge.
Fast forward to today, and I’m incredibly proud to share that Chem-E-Car at Stanford is not only up and running, but we also made it to our first competition this spring at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Western Regional Conference (WRC) hosted by California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). The drivers behind this year’s success? A remarkable team of student leaders, with Danna Chacon at the helm as club president. From our very first meeting, I could tell Danna was going to do everything it took to get us to the competition — and she delivered.
With the support of dedicated co-leads Samantha Reising, Kunal Arora, Jenny Han, James Lu, Keira Cornwell and Brandyn Lu the team spent countless hours in the Uytengsu Teaching Lab (UTL) (shoutout to our beloved lab space!) transforming ideas into a working, competing Chem-E-Car. Their creation—affectionately named ChemisTree—was powered by a homemade aluminum-air battery and stopped using a precisely timed iodine clock reaction, triggered by a photoresistor.
For those unfamiliar, Chem-E-Car’s challenge is deceptively simple: design a car that runs on a chemical power source and stops at a target distance announced the day of the competition (anywhere from 0 to 30 meters). Teams are given one hour to calibrate and prep their car after learning the distance, but the catch is, you never quite know when it’ll be your turn on the track, the timing is dependent on how the cars ahead of you in the lineup perform (most cars don’t even start which dramatically impacts timing!). Each team gets two runs, and the one that stops closest to the target wins.
This year’s distance was 19.8 meters. On our first run, ChemisTree traveled 10 meters—actually the farthest of any of the 18 teams. But the track’s incline slowed us more than anticipated. Undeterred, the team recalibrated the electrolyte solution in our battery, and on our second run, off the car went… 19.2 meters! The crowd erupted—cheers, hugs, the wild joy of students who’d poured heart and soul into a yearlong project. Had we just won regionals in our first year?
And then—devastation.
The judges pulled me aside. A few drops of electrolyte had escaped the battery compartment and secondary container. A small spill, but a serious safety violation. Automatic disqualification.
There were tears. It was a hard pill to swallow. But it was also an invaluable lesson: in engineering, safety isn’t just a checkbox—it’s everything. We may have lost the title, but we gained perspective, resilience and a renewed determination to return stronger.
Still stunned, we gathered for the awards banquet later that evening. That’s when the story took a beautiful turn.
What I haven’t mentioned yet is that two of our juniors—Samantha Reising (from the Jaramillo Lab) and Kunal Arora (from the Bao Lab)—also presented their research at the conference. Samantha entered the technical research competition, while Kunal presented his work in the poster session.
And guess what? They both won first place in their respective categories!
In true ChemE Car spirit, their teammates had brought flowers to celebrate them—without even knowing they would win. That gesture, small but powerful, captured the heart of this group: a community built on support, shared ambition and unshakable camaraderie.
We are already preparing for next year, our sights set on returning to regionals in 2026—with tighter containers, better batteries and the same electric enthusiasm that brought ChemisTree to life.
To all the students who made this dream real: thank you for your brilliance, your grit and your heart. I’m incredibly proud of each and every one of you and can’t wait to see what lies ahead.
