First off, the race is not ran every year. It's ran every second year.
There has been significan advancement in the solar array department in the last couple of years. The array we installed on our car is far more efficient than one we could have put on last time the race was ran. The motor we installed in ours, which is the same one the majority of the other contenders is a brand new technology as well. It's a three phase brushless DC motor that's direct drive. The company that makes it is a perfect example of why we run this race. It's few university students who came up with an idea and gathered a few bucks to start up their own business. Without this race they never would have had the chance to do any of it. They're now working converting things like Dodge Rams to use these electric motors. It's very much on the cutting edge and it really lets creativity bloom even on a shoestring budget.
The cars are mostly street legal and follow all the same rules as regular cars. They have turn signals and brake lights and there has been a lot more invested in safety since one of the contestants died last time they ran this race, two years ago. When they ran it in '03 one of the cars got a speeding ticket so everyone knows the rules. Having said that, most cars won't go anything near those speeds. It's more an indurance race at speed of 50km/h. They keep the cars off the major highways as much as possible untill they hit Canada, then they go down the Trans Canada.
I'll be routing for the car I worked on. http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/solarcar/ The Red River Raycer. We're one of only two colleges entering the race. I had the pleasure of working on the electrical part of the car up until last Thursday. They left on Friday for Austin with our convoy of Civic Hybrids to go through qualifying and scruteneering. We just finished building it on Thursday night, with the solar array working for the first time at about 6:00 in the evening so it was right down to the wire. Wish em luck for me guys.
I wonder where this puts us in Canada, where downloading music off P2P is legal. If I donwload a WMA file from eMule and I actually own the music, then this stuff infests my machine and causes me greif you'd think I'd have a case against them.
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First off, the race is not ran every year. It's ran every second year. There has been significan advancement in the solar array department in the last couple of years. The array we installed on our car is far more efficient than one we could have put on last time the race was ran. The motor we installed in ours, which is the same one the majority of the other contenders is a brand new technology as well. It's a three phase brushless DC motor that's direct drive. The company that makes it is a perfect example of why we run this race. It's few university students who came up with an idea and gathered a few bucks to start up their own business. Without this race they never would have had the chance to do any of it. They're now working converting things like Dodge Rams to use these electric motors. It's very much on the cutting edge and it really lets creativity bloom even on a shoestring budget.
The cars are mostly street legal and follow all the same rules as regular cars. They have turn signals and brake lights and there has been a lot more invested in safety since one of the contestants died last time they ran this race, two years ago. When they ran it in '03 one of the cars got a speeding ticket so everyone knows the rules. Having said that, most cars won't go anything near those speeds. It's more an indurance race at speed of 50km/h. They keep the cars off the major highways as much as possible untill they hit Canada, then they go down the Trans Canada.
I'll be routing for the car I worked on. http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/solarcar/ The Red River Raycer. We're one of only two colleges entering the race. I had the pleasure of working on the electrical part of the car up until last Thursday. They left on Friday for Austin with our convoy of Civic Hybrids to go through qualifying and scruteneering. We just finished building it on Thursday night, with the solar array working for the first time at about 6:00 in the evening so it was right down to the wire. Wish em luck for me guys.
I wonder where this puts us in Canada, where downloading music off P2P is legal. If I donwload a WMA file from eMule and I actually own the music, then this stuff infests my machine and causes me greif you'd think I'd have a case against them.