Shaker Heights Resident Honored By California Lawmakers

Press release from the California Polytechnic State University:

April 17 2020

SAN LUIS OBISPO — Sixteen Cal Poly students will be recognized for their awards and other accomplishments by state lawmakers on the floors of the state Assembly and Senate in Sacramento on Monday, March 2.

“Our students are doers who take pride in the creative process — building a vehicle that gets people across the country faster; creating a light-weight concrete canoe that slices through the water more efficiently; constructing a bicycle capable of setting speed records; or helping to explore the cosmos by finding — and harvesting — extraterrestrial sources of ice,” said university President Jeffrey D. Armstrong, who is accompanying the group to Sacramento.

“They are our ambassadors of Learn by Doing. They represent like-minded counterparts in all six of our colleges. Their successes, in and out of the classroom, for which they will be recognized by our lawmakers in Sacramento show that these young people are leaders ready to take on real world challenges and succeed.”

The group will be introduced to the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Monning, D-Carmel, and to the Assembly by Assemblywoman Megan Dahle, R-Bieber. Monning represents San Luis Obispo County. Dahle has a son who attends Cal Poly.

Ceremonies will be held in each chamber Monday afternoon.

The majority of the students call California home — from the Bay Area to San Diego — including Nathaniel Morgan from the Central Coast. One is from outside the Golden State —Ohio.

The nine women and seven men represent all of Cal Poly’s colleges: two from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design; three from the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Services; six from the College of Engineering; one from the College of Liberal Arts; two from the College of Science and Mathematics; and a pair from the Orfalea College of Business.

Each has distinguished himself or herself, as an individual or on a team that has received a national industry award or in other high-profile events.

These include the Tournament of Roses Parade, with its worldwide TV audience of 65 million; Mustang Media, the campus newspaper, radio, TV and online outreach that earned nearly 50 state and national honors; the concrete canoe team that was runner-up in the national championship; a team of engineering students who are helping NASA look for ways to drill for water on Mars and the moon; and an interdisciplinary team that was invited to SpaceX’s competition to build a Hyperloop pod for faster personal and freight travel.

Noah Wheeler
Shaker Heights, Ohio

Wheeler and another Cal Poly Racing Team student were the first Americans to win the VI-grade Virtual Formula competition for electric race cars. The 23-year-old and teammate Carl Stoye, both mechanical engineering students, won the international competition by using VI-grade vehicle dynamics software to optimize a virtual formula car to compete in a series of race events. They edged out teams from Brazil, China, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain. “The competition has been run for 10 years or so now, and this is the first time that an American team has won,” Wheeler said. Winners are invited to the annual VI-grade International Conference and the Maserati Innovation Lab in Modena, Italy — an area in the Po Valley known as much for its balsamic vinegar and opera heritage as it is for Ferrari and Lamborghini sports cars. While in Italy, the pair toured some other famous car sites as well, including Ferrari and Lamborghini museums and the Pagani factory, said Wheeler, who also trekked to the Dallara race car factory and Stuttgart, Germany, to visit another student formula racing team and friends who work at HWA AG, which runs the motorsports program for Mercedes-AMG. Cal Poly Racing teams design, manufacture and test three innovative race vehicles — two formula cars and a Baja offroad vehicle — every year and compete across the United States. VI-grade supports the program with multiple software licenses. “We are able to use the software to gain a competitive advantage through simulation both in the design phase and the driving phase,” he said. “Knowing the software makes us and other Cal Poly Racing students very desirable to companies utilizing the software.” The 23-year-old chose Cal Poly because of the racing team and Learn by Doing so he “could immediately get involved in racing and start learning both in and out of the classroom.” He looks forward to sharing with elected representatives his affiliation with both the university and racing team.

This press release was produced by the California Polytechnic State University. The views expressed here are the author’s own.