Live Chat Wed. 2:00 pm ET: Beating the Odds in West Philly

Here’s a lesson plan for you:

Build an affordable, 100 miles-per-gallon car on a tiny budget — for a chance to win $10 million.

But you have some stiff competition — mega-sized auto manufacturers, multimillion-dollar start-ups, university teams from around the world, all competing in the Progressive Automotive X Prize competition.

That’s the challenge that faced a remarkable group of high school students from one of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods.

West Philly High’s EVX Team was the only high school team to make it to the semifinals in the prestigious and rigorous Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize global competition.

How did they do it? What did they learn? Is there a model here for educators? What’s next for the team members?

Ask the producer, Debra Morton, team director Simon Hauger, West Philly student and team captain, Azeem Hill, and former Progressive Automotive X Prize Director of Team Relations Julie Zona in a live chat.

We’ll also be featuring guest questioner Jason Fagone, writer and contributing editor at WIRED magazine.

We’d like to thank WIRED and their Autotopia blog for partnering with us on this chat.

You can leave a question in the chat window below, and come by at 2 p.m. ET on Wed., July 18 to join the live discussion.