Morris Community High School’s varsity Hydrogen Car Team is advancing to the 2026 World Finals in June, which will have them traveling all the way to Switzerland.

Chace Bachert, Xander Braun, Dylan Cleek, Griffin Cowell, and Emmanual Martinez presented to the school board during the Monday meeting. The team competed on April 30 at the Hydrogen Grand Prix Regional Race at Thunderdome Raceway, 7085 Highland Drive in Morris, where it qualified for the World Finals.

The Hydrogen Car Team is, at its heart, a STEM-based experience. The students are provided with building kits designed to teach engineering concepts. These kits give students a chance to experiment while designing their specialized car.

This year’s team hopes to follow up on the success of last year’s, where they finished 16th in the world.

The varsity and junior varsity teams competed at regionals, with the junior varsity team using a stock car based on the one the varsity team used in Germany last year. The varsity team had a new machine with more advanced technology that’s built on hybrid engineering principles similar to what’s seen in electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

The students learned how to manage power flow between multiple energy sources, how and when to store, release, or generate energy using capacitors, and how to tune their vehicle for efficiency.

The Varsity team included Chace Bachert, Xander Braun, Dylan Cleek, Griffyn Cowell, Emmanuel Martinez, Ethan Morrison, and Jonathan Zarbock. This team also earned the 2nd place award for Endurance and the 1st place award for Energy. The JV team included Sebastian Braun, Connor Donaldson, Grady Jensen, Diego Lugo, Russel (Rusty) and Skeeter Rogers, and Colin Wickman. This team additionally earned the 1st place award for Innovation and Endurance. The team’s sponsor is Belinda Baxa.