It's An Eco Challenge

Hitting the streets of Houston with a fiberglass rocket on bicycle wheels

Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., tries out one of teams' car at theShell Eco-marathon Americas 2009 in Fontana, Calif.
Last-minute checks of "the car" that will hit Houston's streets
In Houston, the all-girl team "The Shop Girls" from Granite Falls High School inWashington work on "Iron Maiden," which runs on a little diesel motor.
Photo by Peter Barnes
A pit stop
A slick orange number
The entry designed and built by Purdue students
The teams and their cars at the Shell Eco-marathon Americans 2009
A driver readies for the track.

It took countless calculations, 15-hour school days and a 2,500-mile road trip by a group of intrepid parents, but the Shop Girls unpacked a scratch-built car on the floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center that makes the Prius hybrid look like a Mack truck.

“I never thought I’d actually use angle identities in real life,” says Maia Hanson, a junior at Granite Falls High School in Washington, as she explains the tricky process of programming the chip for the transmission in Iron Maiden. The super-efficient, diesel-powered one seater joins entries from colleges and high schools around the country at Discovery Green this weekend in the Shell Eco-marathon.

Started in 1939 as a friendly bet between two scientists at the oil company to see who could squeeze the most mileage from their cars, the event has evolved into a contest that draws hundreds of budding engineers to competitions on three continents.

For the first time in Houston, the American contest kicks off today at 9 a.m. when teams take test runs around the park, and the convention center opens up to eco-curious Houstonians. The opening ceremony takes place at 9 a.m Saturday, followed by races until 8 p.m. where vehicles with gas tanks the size of Coke cans drive a set distance around the course and see who can burn the least amount of fuel in the process.

After an outdoor showing of Apollo 13 in the park, competition resumes Sunday morning and ends with an awards ceremony at 6 p.m.

Local favorites include two teams from the University of Houston and a car from Lamar University in Beaumont. Fuel types vary from hydrogen to biofuels, and entries fall within categories for “prototype” and “urban concept” vehicles, which are slightly closer to street legal.

Hanson and the eight other young women on her team approached the challenge by subjecting foam models to a wind tunnel, then designing everything to fit inside the most efficient shape. The result looks like a fiberglass rocket set atop three bicycle wheels with a 4.5 horsepower Yanmar motor in the back. The Shop Girls’ male counterparts, who go by the team name Urban Autos, toiled beside them on their urban-concept entry shaped a more like a miniature coupe from the 30s.

Shell representatives say a few teams in the past have garnered patents for their inventions and a number of participants go on to successful careers in engineering. For Hanson, though, seeing their creation take its first laps around the school last Saturday was reward in itself.

“We’re kind of used to having automatic gratification, and this has been the work of eight months,” she says. The team hopes the weekends and late nights of tweaking at the school over the last few weeks will pay off as they take to the streets of downtown Houston this weekend.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”