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Stories and comments across the archive that link to formulasun.org.
Stories · 7
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American Solar Challenge 2003 Starts
Ryan Kingsbury writes "The world's longest solar car race kicked off to a sunny start today in Chicago! The American Solar Challenge, which is only held every two years, runs 11 gruelling days along historic Route 66. Race updates can be found at the official site. One big surprise was that last year's winner (University of Michigan) didn't make it through prerace qualifications. This will certainly give some lower budget teams a chance at gold. Details of qualifications can be found here." -
American Solar Challenge 2003 Starts
Ryan Kingsbury writes "The world's longest solar car race kicked off to a sunny start today in Chicago! The American Solar Challenge, which is only held every two years, runs 11 gruelling days along historic Route 66. Race updates can be found at the official site. One big surprise was that last year's winner (University of Michigan) didn't make it through prerace qualifications. This will certainly give some lower budget teams a chance at gold. Details of qualifications can be found here." -
World Solar Challenge Set To Begin
Mdog writes: "The world championship of solar car racing is about (Nov. 18...ok so I can't wait :) ) to begin Down Under. World Solar Challenge pits high school, university, and corporate teams against each other in a race across Australia's Outback, from Darwin to Adelaide." Mdog supplies some more (ahem) non-partisan information about the race below."My Alma Mater's team (which took second in the American Solar Challenge...go UMR!) is looking to take sweet revenge on the evil (*g*) that is the U-Michigan Solar Car team (which won ASC.) Some other North American heavyweights will be Queen's University and U-Waterloo from the frigid north. I'll defer to Ozzies post links to their favoUrite college teams, which, along with the Japanese teams, are often very good. Lastly, watch out for team Solar Motions; out for blood after major technical problems two years ago. Their array is worth...how should I put this...a lot :)
I went two years ago, and this year I'll just be looking forward to this article getting posted on /. *sigh* Good luck and good sun to all the teams. No worries!" -
American Solar Challenge Completed: Blue Went
s20451 writes: "The American Solar Challenge solar car race wrapped up yesterday in Claremont, California, with the University of Michigan winning. According to this article in the Globe and Mail, two Canadian teams finished in the top five: Waterloo and Queen's, finishing third and fourth, respectively. Go Canada!" -
Cross Country Solar Race
Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below."Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.
"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.
"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.
"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."
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Cross Country Solar Race
Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below."Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.
"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.
"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.
"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."
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Cross Country Solar Race
Dorm writes: "The American Solar Challenge, a 2300-mile cross country solar-powered car race begins on Sunday in Chicago. The 10-day race follows old Route 66 (parallels I-55 from Chicago to St. Louis, I-44 from St. Louis to Oklahoma City, and I-40 from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles) to downtown Claremont, California where teams will cross the finish line on the afternoon of July 25th. If you live along the race route or will be in the area, take a look at the media stop schedule on the ASC site and stop by to see some of the cars during the race. Some teams (including ours, Iowa State) will also be displaying their cars Saturday on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where the race begins on Sunday." The submitter has more info about Iowa State's entry below."Many teams (as well as Iowa State) are using advanced technologies like lithium batteries, near space-grade solar cells, and composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass in their cars. Additionally many of us are utilizing Linux with amateur radio and satellite data phones to monitor weather conditions and to help optimize energy usage.
"We run a LinuxPPC server in our solar car chase vehicle that receives GPS coordinates from a Motorola Encore GPS receiver that is driven by a Lineo uCdimm board running uClinux. The uCdimm board reads in the GPS coordinates and broadcasts the coordinates every second via UDP packets on the ethernet network in the van. The LinuxPPC machine uses the coordinates to track our position and to display upcoming route information (stop lights, turns, road contitions) and to aid our racing strategy. Additionally, the LinuxPPC machine connects to the Internet via a Globalstar satellite phone to periodically download weather maps and forecasts for our current location. We also use GPS and amateur radio with APRS in our other support vehicles to monitor all of our vehicles' positions.
"Most of the code that runs everything is developed in house with C/C++, some of it with the Qt library. Myself and another member of our team will be preparing a detailed presentation in September for our local Unix users group about how we've utilized Linux on our team. If there is interest, I'll post the URL here for that once we've got it prepared.
"A list of other teams competing in ASC next week is available online at the American Solar Challenge web site. Most are university teams from North America, but there are some international teams as well."