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

Prize should be bigger

[Hao Wu]

If prize was set at 1000000$, 10000000$, or even more money, contest winners will likely build SUPER sun vehicles that can over-take 4-wheel ram rods and pollutant S.U.V.s.

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

[barzok]

At the university I attended, IIRC, they got students from the business school to head up a lot of that stuff for SunRayce. It let the engineering students focus on building the damn thing. Actually had students from several areas of study in the university involved with the project.

Looks like they're not even in it this year. Not really surprising, actually. The program was going downhill while I was a student there (didn't work on the project myself).

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.

Kind of Ironic

[Infinite93]

I support renewable power and all (Use an iSUN battery charger for my portable Electronics), but think of all the non-renewable time and energy devoted to this type of event. Materials fabrication, student time spent, assembly. The fleet of gas powered cars following around for support of each of these. Research is important, but can't this be a little counter productive?

Wrong...

[taped2thedesk]

I'm a member of the Michigan solar car team, and many, if not most, of the members on the non-engineering projects are from the business school or other academic units.

In fact, the team makes a huge effort to reach out to non-engineering students, and we usually have excellent turnout.

UM Solar Car Team statement

[taped2thedesk]

I'm a member of the UM Solar Car Team - they sent the team members and sponsors this message a few hours ago:

Michigan will not be participating in the 2003 American Solar Challenge. While qualifying for the race in Wisconsin, the car suffered steering system failures which did not allow SpectruM to qualify for and enter the race.

Although not being able to compete in this summer's ASC was devastating to all those involved with the project, the team is committed to using this experience as a building block for future success.

This is not the end for SpectruM! According to ASC race officials, SpectruM is "one of the most advanced and innovative Solar Cars ever built."

During the next month, the team will be displaying SpectruM and the team's sponsors at the Concourse D'Elegance auto show in Cranbrook, the Woodward Dream Cruise and the Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City.

The team is also exploring the possibility of racing SpectruM this October in the World Solar Challenge in Australia, as well as participating in the inaugural 2004 Phaethon Hellas Solar Rally held in Greece before the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens.

Neat idea, but expensive

[pctainto]

I am a part of my university's solar car program, but, unfortunately, we couldn't get our body made in time for the rayce. I did, however, make the 10 hour drive to see the cars in Chicago. If anyone is near where 'scrutineering' is in 2 years, they should definetely go see it.

I helped out with getting various information on different teams' cars, and some of the prices for the things are a bit ridiculous. My university's car is costing less than $150,000, which I thought was pricey until some teams told me that their cars cost 1.5 Million (Queens) or 875,000 (Waterloo).

I think most people think that the rayce is about showing people that we could have cars that run off of solar power, but that is entirely the wrong idea. The cars are made to show solar powers' abilities... if it can power a car, maybe it could do other things too (who woulda thought?)

I wish I could've gone on the rayce, but seeing all the cars was cool enough. I just hope our car makes it in time for Formula Sun next year! (Formula Sun Grand Prix is a track race every year)

http://www.formulasun.org

The problem I have for this race....

[DonaldBeckman817]

The problem I have for this race is that it allows for very little innovation. Storage of energy via flywheels overnight is prohibited, you are limited on how many batteries you can store, what type you can use, and how you use them. You are prohibited to use any solar nighttime charging, star-light or IR charging, or any other innovative way to charge during off time, as your battery box has to be removed at the end of the day and impounded. You are also limited of which type of solar cell you can use. New processes for solar cells have been invented and are in current commercial production that make it much more efficient per sq foot, but you are limited to using old cut-wafer solar cells that have been around for many years. There is one company making contueous ribbon cells (the 'wafer sheet' is drawn from a solid chunk into a ribbon similar like fiber optic glass is drawn into a string from a solid rod) that would be much better suited to the dimension of a car, but you cant use any of that modern technology. This race if more of a contest of who can make the lightest car body and go the furthest on X amps of battery and solar cells, rather than who can make the best solar technology automobile.

UM Solar car speculation...

[stienman]

The UM solar car, SpectrUM, has four wheel steering - the rear wheels are servo actuated with the front being mechanical linkages. It is alos a two person car - the tradoff is that you can have a larger solar array if you carry two people.

I got to see them in a test run a week or two ago, and it's very odd to see the car moving in one direction, but pointing 10-20 degrees off its path. The race page indicates that steering failure caused the car not to finish the prequalifier - probably due in part to their more complex system.

As a note, the previous car did have four wheel steering, but the rear two wheels were locked during the races. I understand the reason is that the fairings (covers to keep wind drag down) became too large and the drag was greater than the benefit of having four wheel steering.

There is a ton of technology in the cars - both in and on the cells and within the shell - which you can't see because they like to keep an edge over other teams. Even though the cells appear to be flat on the back they are designed to take light in at a particular angle (or as close as one can get to that angle) and so I assume the four wheel steering is to enable them to point the cells more effectively into the sun.

-Adam

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.