Team KAItalyst, led by KAIST undergraduate students, celebrated the victory of the first Korea Regional Chem-E-Car Regional Competition held at KAIST on July 20, 2019. With this victory, KAIST team was qualified for the participation in the world finals of Chem-E-Car Competition to be held in Orlando, Florida, USA, in upcoming November.

The Chem-E-Car Competition involves designing and building a shoebox-sized model car that is powered and controlled by chemical reactions. College students throughout the world have participated in the competition since the first tournament was held in 1999 by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). KAIST participated in the competition for the first time in 2014 and won the final victory in 2016, and won the Most Consistent Award in 2017 and 2018. In recognition of KAIST's consistently outstanding performance in the competition, AIChE asked KAIST to host this year's regional competition for the first time in Korea.

Each team collaborated to fabricate a chemically powered model car that could carry a payload, and travel any distance between 15 and 30 meters. The weight of the payload and the travelling distance were randomly set an hour before the competition started, requiring the participants adapt and perform calculations in a short period of time. The goal was to stop travelling exactly at the randomly chosen distance. The car closest to the finish line at the end of the race earned the highest amount of points. Precise control over chemical reactions was key to landing directly on the mark.

Team KAItalyst, consisting of six KAIST undergraduate students, beat their rivals by stopping their car 1.5 meters closer to the goal at the end of the 22.5 meter-long race. Team KAItalyst loaded vanadium redox flow batteries onto their car to stabilize its output, and further increased the accuracy and velocity of chemical reactions through iodine clock reactions.

Professor Dong-Yeun Koh of the KAIST Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department who advised Team KAItalyst remarked, "I hope this year's regional competition that KAIST held for the first time as a Korean university will be a possible starting point for more Korean universities to participate and compete in the future."