Blast from the Past

A little history behind the VRI at WWU:

When Dr. Michael Seal, “Doc,” founded the Vehicle Research Institute (VRI) at Western Washington University in 1975, he had a simple goal: make cars that are lighter, faster, and more efficient in every way. Since then, over 40 vehicles have been designed and built by undergraduate students and faculty that do just that.

As one of the leading schools for automotive design in the region, the WWU VRI has a long track record of excellence both in competition and in the media. The VRI has been awarded the EPA's P3 Award for vehicle emissions, displayed a vehicle at NASA Ames research labs in California, been mentioned at the Los Angeles International Auto Show and published in Seattle Metropolitan, Automotive Magazine, and on Wired.com.

The WWU X PRIZE Team works along side the WWU Mini Baja Team, Formula FSAE Team, and Hybrid Bus Team within the VRI. Over the years, more than $7,000,000 has been raised by the VRI in grants from government, industry and private individuals to complete the various projects in the VRI.

What's in a Name?

Of all the car names out there right now, ours is probably one of the more interesting: Viking 45. But where did it come from? And what does it mean? It’s a simple answer, really.

The fierce Viking is the mascot for Western Washington University. Since its founding in 1979, each vehicle from WWU’s Vehicle Research Institute has been given the name “Viking” followed by the successive number.

To see past vehicles, visit the VRI site: http://vri.etec.wwu.edu/cars.html

Vroooom Vrooooom!

After spending hours in the shop away from homework, loved ones, and beds, the team crossed one of their larges milestones of the project: getting Viking 45 running. Team members cheered as their creation emerged from the VRI into the wide-open world.

IT'S AAALLIIIIIVEEEE!!!!!

Team members were all smiles today as Viking 45 set sailed on her maiden voyage.


After months of planning and construction, the WWU X PRIZE Team entry car, V45, successfully propelled herself out into the world (she even had fully functional brakes!). The trip was short but sweet and gave team members new hope and plenty of things to work on!

A link for the video will be up soon!

Germany's Auto Mobil visit the WWU X PRIZE Team and V40's make over

Viking 40 receives a make-over to show off our sponsors and to thank all of those who helped make it possible.




The boys from Auto Mobil have come all the way from Germany to interview X PRIZE Teams across the country. While visiting us, Doc Seal (the founder of WWU's VRI) was more than happy to drive them around in Viking 7.


And once the rain let up, we took Viking 40 out for a spin to try out it's new skin.

New websites and updates

Hello everyone!

The team has been working away on both the vehicles. Since our last post:

There are now officially one of 43 teams in the race for $10 million dollars, of which, only 2 are universities.

We are currently in the final stages of assembling Viking 45 into a rolling chassis as well as mounting the hybrid drivetrain in the engine bay, so we are looking forward to seeing it rolling around the shop soon!

We are beginning dynamic testing on Viking 40's drivetrain using our in house chassis dynamometer and we will have video up as soon as we can.

Also, we have a few more sites for you to check out more updates and pictures on how the team is doing:

On Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/WWU-X-Prize-Team/193528425235?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=55321532151&ref=ts

On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/WWUXPRIZETEAM

And if you haven't seen our official site yet, be sure to check it out at:
http://vri.etec.wwu.edu/xprize/xprize.html

Business Team Update

After countless hours, meetings, pizza and Sour Patch Kids, the business team has completed the official business plan and successfully submitted it to the X Prize Judges. Fingers crossed that they will not need to send it back to us for revision!

Good work to all who helped!