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American Solar Challenge Racers Head For Canada
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Jul 16, 2008 05:02 PM
from the however-there-is-no-sun-in-canada dept.
from the however-there-is-no-sun-in-canada dept.
coondoggie writes "Solar race cars this week began their nine-day,
2,400 mile chase from Dallas to Calgary, Alberta using only the sun for fuel. The 24 teams in the American Solar Challenge race are mainly US college teams including entries from MIT, Ohio State and Northwestern. The University of Michigan's Continuum car is the defending champ, having won the Challenge in Australia last year. The University of Michigan has won four out of the eight North American Solar Challenges it has entered with its team of more than 100 engineering students, who have vowed to defend their title this year."
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photos of prep day in Plano, Texas (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some photos I shot of the teams preparing their cars the day before the rally started in Plano, Texas.
North American Solar Challenge 2008 prep day photos [flickr.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I wondered why they said "Dallas to Canada" when it was obviously starting in Plano, which, while near Dallas, is not, in fact, Dallas.
The kids were all very eager and informative. Good luck to them that's still in the race.
Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challenge (Score:5, Informative)
Michigan won the 2005 American Solar Challenge race by about ten minutes over Minnesota.
My team [stanford.edu] won the 2005 American Solar Challenge for the stock class, edging out Berkeley by 26 minutes.
Re:Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challe (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't get all huffy about it, Michigan won't win anyway, Appalachian State has an entry...
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Re:Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challe (Score:5, Interesting)
When I'm not at home in Chicago, I'm at my place in Rolla, MO, where I've seen the talented youngsters from Missouri U of Sci & Tech working on their solar vehicle. It's been nearly a decade since I first saw their sun car, and maybe, finally, this country of 300 million hunks of iron junk on wheels is ready to think about other ways of getting to Wal-mart to do their shopping besides relying on fossil fuels.
What do you think, has $4.59/gal gasoline changed any minds yet? My family has downsized to a '95 Mazda that spends most of the time in the garage, but then we live in downtown Chicago where you can walk a few blocks from any point in town and pick up a bus or train in about 5 minutes. Or, and this is what we've chosen, we can hop on our bikes and give the big fungoo to the oil companies (at least when it comes to transportation). Living just blocks from campus or working from home makes it a lot easier, but I'm thinking there are other people making similar decisions to ours. One thing I've learned is that I'm not all that exceptional, so if I can get by without visiting a gas pump every week there are other people doing the same.
Getting back to the solar car race, I just hope the media makes the story more than just an end-of-the-newscast cute item. We need to learn there's other ways to do things, and it feels so good when I cruise by the gas stations on my bike. I like to see the sad faces of the doofuses in their '07 Escalades or Tundras or whatever they're calling those stupid locomotives-on-rubber these days, as they watch the numbers fly by on the gas pumps. Fuck 'em for being stupid, I say. Plus, it makes them a little less cocky and agressive when it comes to sharing the street with my infinite-miles-per-gallon velocipede. Maybe at some point I'll start to have a little human sympathy and understanding for them. But not yet, not yet.
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Re:Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challe (Score:4, Insightful)
Ugh...out of the 3 submissions regarding the NASC, the least-accurate and least-timely one is the one that gets promoted to the front page. Sasha Zbrozek, the team lead for Stanford's next solar car, submitted a much better write-up [slashdot.org] a few days ago when the NASC started.
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Re:Michigan didn't win the 2007 World Solar Challe (Score:5, Interesting)
Michigan was poised to win the 2007 World Solar Challenge until they crashed into their lead support vehicle. Their lead had to break hard after being cut off by STANFORD's support vehicle, which was panicking after they lost their solar car in the heavy Darwin (Australia) traffic. Next time your team enters an international event, please practice driving your race caravan in traffic.
Congratulations on winning the 2005 stock race on a car largely based on Michigan's (embarrassing) 2003 car- one of your lead mechanical designers was a UM veteran.
Sorry about the flame- I am an ex-UM member and am still a little bitter.
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See it as you wish. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry about the flame- I am an ex-UM member and am still a little bitter.
I can see that.
Solar car is about building experience and becoming better at what you do. You can't fault a guy for learning from his mistakes and doing things better the second time around. What is an education for?
UM has lost focus of the spirit of the event. This is a race, but it's not a race to a finish line. It's a race to learn as much as you can in the limited time you have as an undergraduate in a club activity.
Michigan wants so badly to win that they realize needlessly risky designs to pursue fleetingly small perceived advantages. Gaming the race framework and then blaming the outcome of borderline engineering on others is bad form and is representative of the poor sportsmanship that has given the team such a bad reputation in the solar car racing community.
Now, that is not to say that everyone on the UM team is a bad person. There are many fine engineers and upstanding people on the UM team, but their good work, high spirits, passion for the sport, and good conduct are easily eclipsed by the few members of the UM team that don't hold those values as highly.
I would like to point out that the race officials concluded that Stanford had no culpability in Michigan's accident. Observers from both teams provided the details to reach that final decision.
Maybe next time UM shouldn't use brakes designed for a bicycle on a solar car.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
U of M had by far the most innovative car in WSC. Yes, they spent the $$ to get a good array, but only 1/4 as much as the winners from the Netherlands. The UM solar concentrator system was, IMO the biggest new thing to solar car racing since MIT's '95 "short car" aero design. And I'm not counting industry improvements like solar cells or batteries.
If you want to harp on teams that spend money and don't improve much, just look at the top 5 teams in that race- similar cars with fancy arrays.
This, for those of
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks Hal, that's about right (though to be fair, Michigan probably has more logistical support than Nuon these days, although Nuon still had the advantage of a huge cash sponsorship early in the project that allowed them to snap up the world's best solar cells before Michigan had any cash for a down payment - the teams would have likely been well matched without Michigan's accident).
Regarding the crash, Stanford was indeed ruled not legally culpable - but whether they were at *fault* or not, their support
Canada? (Score:4, Funny)
They're having a solar race... in Canada?
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Yeah, and it's dangerous up there. [scienceblog.com]
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I know you said this in jest, but it brings up a valid problem... A race such as this could come down to random luck with regards to the weather. I know cross country racing is so much more attention grabbing, but a 2400 mile circuit on a race track would be far more fair. Say one car is slightly behind the leader, approaching the finish, and both are running on battery reserves under cloud cover after traveling the whole race in virtually identical conditions. A short burst of sunshine on the trailing
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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That's just it, the distance is moot. The race could be 2 miles or 200000 miles. If two cars are mostly evenly matched, which at least SOME of the cars in this race will be (although probably not the leaders), then their results will come down to the last (of many) random 30 second event. And the problems will cascade. Imagine the trip is mostly sunny, but with a few minutes of cloud cover that hits the leader on the first day. When the effects of that lost bit of power hit them, they could fall back i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You could say the race is affected by a number of dice rolls which can either harm or benefit each car. The longer the race, the more rolls and the steeper the bell curve (actually, binomial distribution), thus getting any significant benefit or harm becomes less likely
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Note that cars in close proximity tend to roll the same on their dice, and one bad roll can put you in a worse "bracket" for the entire race, or one good roll in a better.
Re:Canada? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Why not? The sun's great up here. (Score:5, Informative)
However, Alberta isn't really a solar energy hot-spot. Wind power is where it's at. Alberta produces more wind power than any other province in Canada. Whichever racers have the foresight to pack a sail will probably make the best time on the last leg of their journey.
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wind (Score:3, Interesting)
That would actually be interesting if they ever encountered tail winds and could adjust the angle of one of the panels to act as a sail, or even the canopy. Would be a nice "sleeper" bit of tech to surprise the opposition.
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Actually, there will be more minutes of sunlight in a day the further north you go. Of course, the weather in Alberta hasn't exactly been great this week. Tornado near Vulcan yesterday, and lots of storms all week.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They're having a solar race... in Canada?
Between having to stay in igloos, endless darkness and putting on snow chains, it is going to be tough ;)
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Re:Canada? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeesh. Everyone's racing in the same direction, silly wabbit. Besides, it's summer here now, so there's lots of sunlight to be had.
A local (Winnipeg) community college is participating too, here's their race blog: http://raycer.wordpress.com/ [wordpress.com]
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World Solar Challenge (Score:5, Informative)
In 2001 the Nuna of the Delft University of Technology from the Netherlands, participating for the first time, was the fastest.
In 2003 the Nuna 2, the successor to the winner of 2001 won again, with an average speed of 97 km/h (60 mph).
In 2005 the Nuna team scored a hat-trick with their third victory in a row; their Nuna 3 won with a record average speed of 102.75 km/h (63.85 mph). Aurora finished in second place followed by the University of Michigan in third.
In 2007 the Dutch Nuon Solar team scored their fourth successive victory with Nuna4 in the challenge class averaging 90.07 km/h (55.97 mph) under the new rules, while the Ashiya team with their car Tiga won the race in the adventure class under the old rules with an average speed of 93.53 km/h (58.12 mph).
But it makes sense, with the average Dutch weather our solar tech has to be really good!
Breakdown of time (Score:5, Funny)
Time to drive from Dallas to Calgary - 2 days
Time to negotiate border crossing - 7 days
Re:Breakdown of time (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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I'd have to agree, as Alberta seems to be merging into "Little USA" mentality as of late.
I see... (Score:5, Funny)
One to turn it on, the rest to shine flashlights on it?
Applause Well Deserved, but Starkly Absent (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this kind of competition is just great, what with the innovation which is always spawned by things of this nature.
However, I can't help but notice that although I feel pride for the competitors and feel happy that progress in this direction is taking place, the public interest seems lacking. And I don't just mean Joe Shmoe is unamused: at the time of this posting the article has been front page slashdot for 5 minutes with 1 comment.
Is it because these vehicles, while being great proofs of concept, do point out the current weakness of real-time solar power? Are the cars just too lightly built and cheesy looking?
Perhaps a way to capture more popular attention (and thus imagination) might be to have a Solar "Charged" race. This would catch more interest I think.
Stipulate that the vehicles must charge their batteries using solar power and utilize only the power they have derived from the sun. This would allow high-performance electric cars to be showcased doing their sports-car killing speed runs whilst whining by like a flying saucer.
If there is one thing the scientists and geeks need to evolve, it's a better sense of PR.
If you need evidence that the nerdy are bad with PR just look at some of the scary, weird names used for our creations:
* Linux - sounds like an evil species of aliens - 'run! the Linux are attacking!'
* The Gimp - do I need to say more?
* Ubuntu - beautiful in translation, terrible as a mnemonic for the target 'lay' audience - 'ooo-but what?'
The right kind of innovation? (Score:2, Redundant)
The most important consideration in making PV practical is to reduce $perW. Who cares about efficiency as a goal of itself? If someone was to make 10% efficient roofing tiles at low $perW then you could make a whole roof
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Re:Applause Well Deserved, but Starkly Absent (Score:5, Interesting)
On another note, I have an idea as to why electric cars (even ridiculously fast ones like the tesla) don't get the "hotness" factor that other race cars get - they don't make loud noise. I think the visceral reaction to a loud muffler is what draws the "speed" emotion from folks. (Incidentally it also explains why every honda civic down the block has a muffler the size of a cantelope).
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Close, it charges in 3.5hrs and lasts around 4.5. You might have been thinking of an older version.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This is essentially the existing rule in the North American Solar Challenge (and I'm pretty sure in the other solar challenges, like the upcoming South African Solar Challenge and the 2009 World Solar Challenge), and the operating pri
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously that's because everyone was reading TFA.
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They might be by the time gas hits $12/gal
WMU! (Score:3, Funny)
Go someone else!
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Moose repellant (Score:3, Informative)
Moose versus Solar Car would not harm the moose, but it would be unlikely the car would roll again. What sort of technology is being employed for the very serious issue of possible Moose Damage inflicted onto a solar car during a race?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If m00se get involved, I'd keep an eye out for some people being sacked.
Oklahoma US-75 (Score:3, Informative)
I live 60 miles from McAlester i may just drive to BigMac just to wave from the side of the road, i wish you all lots of good luck...
hey, my donated latches are on the OSU car! :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, it was quite a long time ago, but latches I sell, normally used on carbon fiber race hoods I manufacture were donated to the OSU team to latch the top and bottom halves of the car together.
If you are curious, it's these:
http://deftracing.com/aerocatch_hood_pins/index.htm [deftracing.com]
I just got a msg on the 26th that they were heading for their first race, but forgot to follow up on it... I see it's on it's way... but they may have had battery problems :(
here's the OSU blog with up to date info:
http://oregonstate.edu/groups/solar/ [oregonstate.edu]
no CMU? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're somehow confusing the North American Solar Challenge (which Carnegie Mellon has never entered, to my knowledge) with the DARPA Grand Challenges [wikipedia.org], where Carnegie Mellon has usually been the favorite and has traditionally done quite well (an upset by Stanford in 2005 notwithstanding). They are very different races requiring different expertise, although it would be interesting to apply machine learning techniques to solar racing strategy.
an interesting point of the rules... (Score:3, Interesting)
i'm find it fascinating that the rules state that the cars are only allowed to run on global thermal energy - which includes wind, EXCEPT for any power stored in the batteries at the beginning of day one.
if i read this correctly, the team with the most efficient batteries (and/or greatest battery capacity) has a tremendous advantage.
an even more interesting race would start with all cars at a zero-charge, i think.
Re:Solar power in Canada.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Water turbine-powered green vehicles... I think you're on to something!