Teens build electric car powered by Twitter, Facebook posts

Converting old gas-powered cars to run on electricity has become easy enough that Minddrive, a Kansas City non-profit, has made such conversions part of an after-school education program for inner-city teen-agers. For this year's project, Minddrive decided to set a higher bar by challenging the students to build a car powered by tweets and Facebook posts.

In the past several years, Minidrive has converted three other vehicles to EV, then taken them on cross-country drives. For most of the students, the lessons start with the basics of how to handle an angle grinder or power drill and move onto more complicated tasks, like improving aerodynamics or cutting weight safely. And the students are encouraged to keep a record of their progress in words and pictures. "We teach them about math and science, technology and environment through hands-on projects," says Stephen Rees, Minddrive CEO.