If you’ve been a long-time reader, you know that the West Philly High School Hybrid X team is near and dear to my heart (you can donate here if you like what you read):

Who says teenagers can’t change the world? In their free time after school, 15 teens from a low-income high school in Philadelphia built a car. And not just any car: their 160 mpg Factory Five GTM biodiesel hybrid kit car has outperformed other fuel-efficient cars built by professional engineers and graduate students from Ivy League universities.

Yesterday, this group of teenagers — the West Philly Hybrid X Team, a crew of 15 high school mechanics from West Philadelphia High School — were honored with the “Next Generation Award” at the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, which recognizes visionaries whose innovation in the fields of technology, medicine, space exploration, automotive design, and environmental engineering is changing the world we live in. Other winners include Steven Squyres and his Spirit & Opportunity team, who created robotic surrogates for humans on Mars, as well as director James Cameron, who was honored with the “Leadership Award” for innovations in filmmaking technology used for the film Avatar.

Under the guidance of faculty advisor Simon Hauger — a former electrical engineer who now teaches math and science — the West Philly team entered two vehicles into last year’s Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize, a $10 million prize for which 111 teams signed up. Out of the 111, West Philly was the only high school team. Their entries were a Factory Five GTM biodiesel hybrid kit car that achieved the equivalent of 160 mpg over 100 miles, and a converted Ford Focus gasoline plug-in hybrid. The team blew everyone’s expectations out of the water when they made it to the semifinals, beating out over 80 teams. Equally astounding is the fact that at a school where 85 percent of students are economically disadvantaged and in a region with a drop-out rate of over 50 percent, every single member of the X Prize team graduated.

The program at West Philly started in 1998 with an electric go-cart which won the science fair. And, as Hauger adds, “Kids from West Philly aren’t supposed to win the science fair.” Over the next few years the team developed a full-sized vehicle that got 180 mpg equivalent, and went on to beat MIT and 40 other teams in 2002 at the prestigious Tour de Sol competition.
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