Alex Seither to Receive Soap Box Derby's President's Youth Volunteer Service Award

2017 Jun 30

Alex Seither of Mason, Ohio, will receive Soap Box Derby's 2017 President's Youth Volunteer Service Award, which recognizes volunteers under the age of 21 who have made a positive impact on the Soap Box Derby through their leadership on the local or national level.

He was the driving force behind the creation of the new Collegiate Engineering Design Challenge Competition, which is part of the derby's Gravity Racing Challenge STEM Team Competition. According to Soap Box Derby, Alex proposed the idea as a way to apply derby building and design skills to a college level engineering curriculum and learning experience.

"Alex embodies the criteria and principles of the award," said Bobby Dinkins, vice president of the Soap Box Derby. "He has helped create a program that expands the positive learning aspects of Derby racing to a community of participants that will benefit directly from the knowledge gained. Engineers who participate in the CEDC will graduate and go on to careers applying the knowledge learned via CEDC to solve our world's most pressing engineering challenges. In that way, we will all benefit from the program that Alex created."

Alex, a Dayton Area Soap Box Derby Board member, started his Soap Box Derby career in 2007 in the local Cincinnati Soap Box Derby race. He was a five-time participant in the FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby world championship race and was the 2009 world champion in the Rally Super Stock Division.

You can read more about Alex's honor here.