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Solar Powered Car Attempts to Break Record
Snowdon writes "Jaycar Sunswift III today started on its 4000km journey across the Australian outback, in an attempt to beat the 8.5 day record from Perth to Sydney. The team expects to complete the journey in 6 days, depending on the weather. It is a seriously innovative machine, with the aerodynamic design iteratively optimised on 80 CS lab computers over three months, custom-built carbon-fibre wheels, chassis, suspension and steering components, and custom-built power electronics and telemetry/control systems (components of which presently use Linux, but will soon run Iguana/Wombat). It is the result of several years' work by both undergraduate and postgraduate students at UNSW. Keep track of the team's progress by visiting www.sunswift.com."
The article title had me excited for a second - as a (ex-)member of the University of Waterloo's Midnight Sun Solar Race Car Team that broke the world record for the longest distance traveled on a solar car, I thought they were trying to erase us from the record books. I guess the distance record will be safe for next little while longer. :)
I wish you guys the best in your journey ahead! UNSW, for those that don't know, has one of the most advanced photovoltaic research labs in the world and probably still holds all the records for getting the highest efficiency out of Si-cells.
There are 1034 cut down Sunpower A300 cells in the array. (They're cut to take off the corners and allow us to get 5% more active area into our 12m^2 - we ended up with 11.5m^2 active area). They're encapsulated by Gochermann Solar Techonology in Germany (for reference: I can't speak highly enough of these things. Having built several of our arrays, including the vacuum-formed curved panels for Sunswift 2, I can assure everyone that this is easily the best experience I've ever had with solar cells. Everything just works the way its supposed to).