University of Michigan Solar Car Wins Fifth Straight National Title 25
An anonymous reader writes For the fifth consecutive year, the solar car team from the University of Michigan has won the American Solar Car Challenge. The event is an eight-day, 1,700-mile race with a total of 23 participating teams. The Umich victory comes in spite of a 20-30 minute delay when they had problems with the motor at the very beginning of the race. "They made the time up when team strategists decided to push the car to the speed limit while the sun was shining bright, rather than hold back to conserve energy." Footage of the race and daily updates on the car's performance are available from the team's website, as are the specs of the car itself. Notably, the current iteration of the car weighs only 320 pounds, a full 200 pounds lighter than the previous version.
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they would all look alike but with 50 cubic feet of storage.
That is the problem with any engineering challenge where the conditions of a test are repeated over and over. Everyone will naturally move towards the same design as, without a major technological break through, that design is the most efficient concept.
It is the major reason I hate the direction motorcycle racing is going. By bringing in more rules about what is and isn't allowed they are reducing the possible solutions.