Gearing up for 2024 Edible Car Contest

A quirky contest designed to fuel an appetite for engineering still satisfies the Illinois Valley’s craving for fun nearly 20 years later.

Illinois Valley Community College’s Edible Car Contest counts faculty and students from the college and area high schools among its fans, said CAD instructor Dorene Data, who created and organized the delectable derby. IVCC’s MIMIC project and the Workforce Development Division sponsor it in recognition of National Engineering Week.

The 18th annual contest is Wednesday, Feb. 28, in Room CTC 124. Entries are dropped off at 10 a.m., judging is at 11:30 and racing begins at noon.

The edible car concept surfaced as Data and IVCC representatives toured the area promoting IVCC’s engineering programs. Edible cars were a refreshing change from the robots that were popular demonstrations at the time, and food proved to be more obtainable and affordable than electronics components, she said.

The car bodies’ design ingredients read more like a restaurant menu than an auto parts store. Over the years, salami, cheese, rice cakes, pasta, tortillas, tacos, pretzels, Twinkies, bananas, donuts and lots and lots of Rice Krispies treats were molded into odd-looking vehicles with the requisite three (at least) wheels and two axles -- and sometimes carrying marshmallow Peeps drivers.

Every item used to make the car must be edible, even if the entry isn’t very mouthwatering by the time it reaches – or doesn’t reach – the finish line. Judges from the college and community award prizes in up to 10 categories, including aerodynamics, design, speed and creativity.

Choosing sturdy, operable ingredients to fashion a moving object uses science, engineering, and math skills. “You can’t have something that turns sloppy and caves in,” Data said. Even chemistry comes in handy to keep an ice cream carriage from melting before the race. Outside-the-box thinking is critical, too.

Second-year CAD students Kenny Harsted, Faith Pack and Josh Washkowiak are ready to apply lessons learned in last year’s contest to new contenders. Last year’s entry crumbled at crunch time, they said.

Washkowiak, who had built an entry in eighth grade, enjoyed the task and said it was something anyone of any age can do.

The racetrack, originally a table propped at an angle that allowed for gravity propulsion, grew more sophisticated thanks to students from electronics classes, who rigged a course with a push-button gate, lights and timers. Cars compete singly in time trials.

The contest draws as many as 75 contestants and fans from around the area and school and college campuses. While they’re here, they tour a campus some of them might be seeing for the first time, Data said.

For more information, visit https://www.ivcc.edu/ediblecarcontest.