Five Labs That Make Going to Class the Best Part of College

Not every student falls asleep at the thought of doing another lab. For a fortunate few, homework means setting off bombs, making lightning, crashing cars, and unleashing 100mph winds. Come meet the luckiest students in the country inside (with video)

By Annalee Newitz Posted 08.20.2007 at 1:00 am 0 Comments

Crash Cars

Where: George Washington University FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center (NCAC)

What You'll Learn: How to make a Civic survive a head-on crash with a Hummer

Future Job: Safety engineer, civil engineer

Prospective Employers: U.S. Department of Transportation, major auto manufacturers

Today's assignment: Send a Ford truck careening into a 4,400-pound concrete pylon.

At the NCAC, every student in the school's transportation-safety graduate program gets a car-and instructions to tear it down to piles of nuts and bolts, struts and glass sheets. Then the student rebuilds the vehicle in a computer model so he can virtually crash it again and again. (Students also help with real crash tests.) The lab works with auto manufacturers and the Department of Transportation to inform safety standards for cars and "roadside furniture," such as light poles, barriers and signs. The current curriculum confronts a recent problem on the freeways: the huge population of SUVs, minivans and other small trucks. Students are trying to figure out whether objects like highway barriers should be changed to reflect the size of the vehicles likely to be plowing into them in the future.