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."

Comments

what a waste

[mooface]

It'd be much better if the students pursued smaller, more discrete projects that they could truly get involved with. It's sad that many engineering students end up doing things like PR, fundraisers, etc etc instead of engineering -- and trust me, that is what happens at places like UM. They don't have to be ruined by paperwork 2 years into a bachelors degree. They'll have plenty of time in the real world to trade useful engineering skills for that...

Re:what a waste

[xenocide2]

You're absolutely correct, these engineering students aren't researching new manufacturing techniques. Of course, they're also undergraduate students, typically in mechanical or electrical engineering, from a public university. Of interesting note is that occasionally students get Master's by tackling something like a power tracker system. The design goes into lots of realistic engineering methods. Quite simply, there's a challenge in simply selecting a body shape; one must balance aerodynamics with power generating surface area and weight.

Quite frankly, you'll never see untested technology being used in these sorts of endevors. Its far more profitable to start a company to research, develop, promote, produce and sell these sorts of technologies. And really, you don't need to race a car in order to test out your newfangled gallium-arcenide solar cells.

That said, I believe that the well funded Michigan team brought in a researcher from germany for his new process that created mircopyramids or some such, increasing surface area over simple flat surfaces. Of course its incredibly expensive, but being sponsored by half the big motor companies in the area helps out.

Re:what a waste

[tsangc]

It's sad that many engineering students end up doing things like PR, fundraisers, etc etc instead of

I disagree. Proposing an project, selling the idea to stakeholders, marketing, project management etc are all parts of real life engineering. No engineer sits at a desk all day and works purely on technical design work. They're also excellent things to put on a resume for jobs later on.

That and not everyone wants the same goals out of the project. They might be from other parts of the university like the business school or students who are looking to do something more people oriented instead of their normal engineering studies.

new technologies

[Fred Ferrigno]

The problem is, any time some new technology comes out that improves solar efficiency, every team has to have it or they have no chance. These cars are already ridiculously expensive, and if you let the teams go hog wild, the winner would by decided by their budget rather than talent or effort -- well, more than it is already.