Fast Shark Inspires Mexico’s Nacional Autonoma

Pamela Ruiz of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City explains how her team built a car that resembles a predator of the sea. Appropriately, they named their vehicle Mako, after the fast-moving shark.

Nacional Autonoma is one of 11 teams from outside the United States in Shell Eco-marathon Americas this year (four from Canada, three from Brazil, three from Mexico, and one from Guatemala).

Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, in its first year in the competition, had a heartbreaking development at the airport; they could not get their car engine through customs. Another team, Schurr High School of Montebello, California, offered to help them out and they were working on a replacement that would enable them to compete.