Moondrive drives into second place

Published 2:54 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

DUVALL _ Five students from Cedarcrest High proved that

they weren’t a bunch of grease monkeys when it came to designing

cars. Moondrive _ a team made up of Danny Abell, Colin Guthrie, Chris

Lee, Kassie Lett and Andrea McDonald _ earned second place at the

recent DaimlerChrysler Build Your Dream Vehicle Competition for their

car named Trinity.

The gas-battery powered hybrid was designed on the computer to

be stocked with air bags, anti-lock brakes and featured a unique pet-safety

system to “make sure that your pets didn’t become flying projectiles.”

“It’s a lot of guesswork,” McDonald said. “We went through

a huge stack of information to make a role model.”

The group was responsible for researching, designing and

marketing their make-believe car, and aside from one major glitch, the competition

went without a hitch.

“Our first draft was deleted and Colin had three days to do the

re-design,” McDonald said.

“It looked like a cartoon pull-toy,” Abell added. “We flashed the

design to the judges for five seconds so they could see we had a car.”

Despite the looks of the model, the team was still able to present

their original conception of what the car should have looked like and how

it would perform. The design was targeted to attract adults between the

ages of 35 and 55 and the group touted their car as “the ultimate in luxury and

ultimate in performance.” In addition to the standard features, Trinity

also boasts leather seats, automatic transmission and power everything _ all

for just $30,000.

“Our inspiration was the BMW 5 Series and the Mercedes

because [they’re] sports sedans,” Abell said.

“It would be big and luxurious and go fast.”

Two other groups from Cedarcrest High submitted designs for the

competition _ Next Generation Design, which won third place and M.E.S.A.

Teacher Mike Miyoshi was proud of the 24 students who competed

in the event, after all, only 30 teams were chosen to move on to the

semi-finals in the Seattle area.

“This is like the real world,” he said. “It’s a way to work in groups

to accomplish something they couldn’t do by themselves.”

Moondrive received a $2,000 award and crystal trophy and

Next Generation Design won $1,000 and a crystal trophy.