News Release Archive
N.S. MUSEUM OF INDUSTRY--Female Power Behind Electric Racing Car
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Janine Goyetche has accomplished a lot in her few years. A Grade
11 student at Strait Area Education-Recreation Centre in Port
Hawkesbury, she plays basketball avidly, maintains an A average,
and along with a group of friends recently completed construction
of an electric Formula Ford racing car.
Ms. Goyetche and her "pit crew" --Cara Dawson, Natalie MacKeigan,
Erin MacIntyre, Marie MacDonald, Elisa Connor, Nicole MacDonald
and Cheryl Kawadja -- decided in 1995 it would be neat to build
an electric car. To Ms. Goyetche's knowledge, only two or three
others had ever been built by Canadian high school students. Nova
Scotia Power recently commissioned construction of an
electrically powered car, but it didn't work, she said.
Hers does. The body of the Formula Ford was bought from an
autobody shop in Sydney. The girls stripped and rebuilt the
chassis and did all the other work on the car, including on the
transmission. The automobile's controls are electronic and
computerized (LCI): logic controlled. How fast does it travel?
"We don't know yet," said Ms. Goyetche.
But they'll find out soon. The girls plan to take the car
--provided they raise sufficient funds --to Phoenix in March to
race on an international electric car circuit. Other races, in
Connecticut, New York, Los Angeles, Arizona and Virginia, precede
the Phoenix race, but "Phoenix is where the university recruiters
will be," said Ms. Goyetche.
She and her friends are all honor students, and part of the
attraction of racing on this circuit is the exposure it will
provide the Port Hawkesbury teens.
Ms. Goyetche said engineering departments from most major
American universities use the circuit as a recruitment vehicle
(no pun intended), and the students are hoping to be noticed.
Ms. Goyetche herself is looking forward to a science-based
career, but which wing of science has yet to be determined. "I'm
keeping my options open," she said.
The car will be displayed at the Nova Scotia Museum of Industry
in Stellarton throughout October as part of the museum's
celebration of Women in Science and Technology: Women's History
Month. The museum is off the Trans-Canada Highway at Exit 24.
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Contact: Carla Baillie
Nova Scotia Museum of Industry
902-755-5425
E-mail: baillica@ednet.ns.ca
ngr September 30, 1997 10:00 am
