Calgary Solar Team

New Website!

2011-01-13T01:38:00.003-06:00

Hi Everyone,

This blog area will be going dormant very shortly. To continue following us you can visit our new website calgarysolarteam.ca (same as it has always been) and click on the blog section!

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Work Continues...

2010-12-29T20:00:00.016-06:00

Well since we started array construction in the shop, the team has really been shifting into high gear...

With the recent return of Scott from Switzerland the mechanical team has been revving up in preparation of the new top shell layup that will be happening mid January.

Above: Scott brought back this epic Swiss flag that is now a part of our shop...

The Mechanical team has been hard at work re-designing the suspension, brakes, roll bar, and motor on Axiom to reduce weight in all possible areas. Some components have been reduced in weight by up to a factor of 5 whilst retaining all the structural integrity required to maintain the safety of Axiom. It really sounds like we will meet our target weight loss goal of 150lbs, which will make Axiom an incredibly competitive race car.

Below: Some crazy computer madness. Jeff is at the back finalizing the design of his new Superboard and working on telemetry. John is working on the motor, Scott is working on the suspension and George is reviewing our website as it has just been updated...

Above: Computer madness...

Today was a pretty awesome day, especially because we had a visit from our Business and Sponsorship Managers, Brandon and Dan. They accomplished a fair bit of work while we were making a racket with the vacuum pump from our encapsualtor. We have been making lots of panels and are now already at 30% array completion after just 4 days of work.

Above: Our awesome solar cell encapsulation machine at work.

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Merry X-Mas From the Solar Car Team

2010-12-27T16:23:00.014-06:00

Hey Everyone!

We haven't updated our blog in a while so here is some random stuff we have been working on!

Construction of Axiom's new and more advanced Solar Cell Array is in progress. Right now we are roughly 20% completed after just 2 days of work. We should be finishing up in the next week or so. Our process has been much improved by various innovations in the way we make modules. The new array will be half the weight, more powerful, and much more durable compared to the previous array.

George and Denny have been building modules all day and it looks like we will hit an impressive 5 modules completed for the day.

-Above: George Re-organizing the shop, John measuring something.

-Above: George guarding the oven against solar panel robbers.

See the picture below for a glimpse of our new awesome steering wheel!

At about 1/3 the weight of the old one, it combines extremely light weight construction with greater ease of use. The drivers will now only have to deal with 5 switches instead of the previous 11. The steering wheel now houses the new Superboard designed by Jeff that takes care of all the driver controls, telemetry, and blinker lights.

The mold has also been under repair in preparation of our new top shell layup that will be happening in just a few weeks.

-Above: Mold under repair

Merry Christmas!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

MPPT Update

2010-12-10T01:41:00.016-06:00

Well exams are right around the corner (in a few days for me) and I'm putting off studying once again as per usual... so I'll update everyone with another blog post!

Kevin managed to collect a bunch of numbers on the power conversion efficiency of the MPPT last weekend. The numbers that came back look great and the real version of the tracker should be about 0.5% greater all around due to slightly different components.

Here are the graphs we managed to obtain. Output voltage in both plots is approx 110V...

The graph above is a plot of efficiency(Ordinate y-axis) vs input power(Abscissa x-axis) (boost factor is being held relatively constant at 3-5). We don't yet have enough data points to hold the boost factor constant so that's why the graph is not very smooth.

The graph above is a plot of efficiency(Ordinate y-axis) vs Boost factor(Abscissa x-axis) Input current is at roughly 5A. I think it's interesting how the top of the graph flattens out. I'm not sure yet if this is what is actually happening, or the precision of our instruments are what's causing it.

We have a lot more data at different input currents/power but we will keep that data to ourselves for now... We did actually test up to boost factors of approx 60 (<2V input)...

Anyway after exams are done we will be finally starting array construction! I can already tell you without question that this array will easily be the most risky and most innovative thing our team has ever done! This is going to take some real precision and attention to detail, hopefully we can pull it off!

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Last Weekend and Final Exams

2010-12-02T22:35:00.006-06:00

There was a lot of activity at the shop this past Saturday, as everyone was working hard on various tasks within each sub-team. Time is really flying by... it seems like only yesterday that the latest semester was just beginning.

Once again, I can only really speak for the mechanical team in terms of what was accomplished at the garage last week, but I'm sure Tim can fill you all in on the latest electrical-related stuff that has been going on.

The first thing we did on Saturday was dig out our prototype top shell from out of the snow in front of our shop. We left our shell outside a couple weeks ago, because we simply don't have the space to accommodate it in the garage, and after the snow dump that we experienced recently, the people working the snow plows at the grounds building apparently thought it would be a pretty funny joke to completely cover the shell in snow :P

Our seat is completely done now and pictures of both the foam/balsa core material base (which was implemented to house the bolts securing the seat to the bottom of the shell and ensure the 27 degree angle of incline) as well as the seat in its final position can be seen below.

Apart from these activities, the team was also busy with more rolling resistance testing of various tires, doing practice lay-ups in our top-shell mold, and finishing up the array stand design (it's ALMOST there... ).

Since the team watched 'Race the Sun' a couple weeks ago, we have recently made a tribute to Halle Barry's grossly simplified explanation of how a solar car works. This tribute can be seen below; note that our car only uses 99% of the energy generated, and gives back 1% to the sun in the "cycle" :) ... thanks Mico for adding that.

Didn't get too many pics of the electrical or business team this week (actually pictures of our Saturday workdays are pretty sparse lately since our camera charger magically disappeared a few weeks ago), but there will be many more pictures and updates to come as we have many important upcoming tasks scheduled. We will definitely be sure to post at least a few pictures of the eating competition between Tim and I during the teams annual Christmas potluck. We all know who's going to win that haha.

Finals are also coming up for everyone on the team, so most of the team will be on a semi-hiatus, but since we can't afford to take a break because our main lay-up is upcoming, you don't have to worry about receiving less updates from the team. On the contrary, there will be more stuff to update everyone about.

Stay tuned!

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

This Weekend

2010-11-21T03:32:00.017-06:00

This Saturday was a pretty awesome day all around.

Unfortunately some sort of solar car gremlin decided to take the charger for the shop camera so all the pictures you see below were taken by John with his camera. I'm pretty sure Johns camera has been through a few epoxy wars and possibly a few acetone baths so please appreciate the quality of pictures his camera still takes...

Me and Kevin have been working on the software for the UC Solar MPPT which is coming along really nice. It tracks pretty good now but needs a lot of refinement in order to be acceptable to our standards. Kung fu George (sorry I don't have the epic picture) has also gotten on board and now we are all working on our own tracking algorithms and I guess we will see who ends up with the best algorithm in the end.

Jeff has been continuing to work on the new "SuperBoard" that will control almost everything on the car in a form factor of roughly the size of a ipod. It will take care of the driver controls, blinker lights, telemetry, and the driver display. How we (and when I say we, I mean Jeff) managed to fit this much functionality into such a small form factor is beyond me... Pictures to come soon...

I've also been working on a new slick steering wheel for Axiom due to the old steering wheels weight. In between Jeff's SuperBoard and the new steering wheel we will be saving 2-3 lbs of weight which is pretty ridiculous when you think about how small of a part the steering wheel is...

On top of the stuff above the electrical team spent most of the day working on the test battery pack which is rapidly approaching completion.

The mech team also was hard at work (or hardly working?) on various carbon fibre pieces for Axiom. One such example is the new very very lightweight seat...

I also stumbled across this LED street sign that we had laying around so I decided to rejuvenate it as a joke. Come to think of it, it will actually come in handy as a "you are not allowed in" or a "you are allowed in" sign when we are in array construction mode. LOL...

We also rounded out the day with the usual Hockey game! It was definitely one of the most epic Hockey games we've played so far. It was me and John vs Mark and Mico and it basically went down to the wire... I think the final score was 20-18 for M&M if I remember correctly...

We (Calgary) managed to avoid the brunt of old man winter until earlier this week. On Tuesday she dropped down to -25C and has pretty much remained the same since.

Also later on, to put one of our many "fail" seats behind us we decided to take it for a toboggan ride. Unfortunately it didn't really work out to plan... I think the picture describes the rest of the story perfectly lol...

Believe me, by the time we were finished "tobogganing" we all looked like abominable snowmen...

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Workday and 'Race the Sun'

2010-11-14T17:27:00.013-06:00

Another Saturday has gone by... one less workday between now and the day we have to send off the car.

The mechanical team was mostly preoccupied with shaping and gluing in the foam/balsa wood to the bottom of the seat to create the necessary 27 degree incline angle, creating a mock wooden wheel which could be mounted to the 16" rear rim (we haven't actually ever used 16" rims at the front of the car, so before we design them we wanted to check for any geometric conflicts inside of the fairing), and of course finalization of the array stand.

Some pictures of the mechies performing specific tasks related to the above activities can be seen below:

Stanley sanding down a piece of balsa wood for the bottom of the seat on the belt sander.

Right to left: Matt, Jerry, Aaron, Eiden (four of them working on the wooden wheel), Chris, and Anthony (working on seat).

Steve continuing to work on the array stand that him and Isabel have been developing for the past few weeks.

Sweet shot of Axiom's bottom shell from the front.

The electrical team was also hard at work in their area of the garage. They were busy at work on the MPPTs, solar cell encapsulation, and retrofitting an old battery box to house some old cells we had sitting around the shop to test a new battery setup.

In the picture above, left to right: Stephanie, Dan, Awesome printer, Tim, George.

With a smile this big, one can only assume that Jeff is working on something... 'super'.

Towards the end of the day, we headed for Jeff's house to watch 'Race the Sun' - a movie about an underdog Hawaiian high school team facing adversity and overcoming all odds in competing in the World Solar Challenge 1990. Based on a true story, it had all the cheesy lines and awkward dialogue that you expect in an awesome inspirational story. After the movie we stuck around for a bit, talking about random solar car-related topics, one of which can be seen below:

In this picture, from left to right: Jeff, Christie, Brandon, Tim, and Mico.

After the movie, Tim, Jeff, and I headed back to the shop. Jeff and Tim were working on a new electrical component for the car, and made at least a dozen trips from their workbench to the car while troubleshooting various issues. I bailed early on, but knowing the pair of them, they probably pulled another all-nighter at the shop.

Talk to you guys later.

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

Testing and More Updates

2010-11-10T18:14:00.014-06:00

While I think Tim's record for longest blog post in the history of blogging will remain intact, this one is pretty long, as a lot has been going on lately. This past Saturday workday was another hectic, productive, hockey-filled day. The mechanical team was working on the bolting system for the seat, continued finalization of the array stand, obtaining data from our rolling resistance jig, to name a few things. The electrical team was busy with their usual work, and the business team also had their weekly meeting in the garage (they are definitely spending more time here). They also joined in hockey at the end of the day, and it was actually a lot more fun to play with the whole team. I don't think I even need to tell you who won in the mechanical vs. business + electrical team match-up haha.

Above: some mechies working on the seat bolting (left to right: Yanyi, Jerry, Stanley, Chris). Below: The team playing hockey at the end of the day.

I also made a cut-out of our team logo and glued it onto our seat this past week. The logo was cut from kevlar and a small piece of innegra (which incidentally is a very interesting type of fibre...)

Our previous mechanical manager, Scott Nesbitt, is on his internship in Switzerland, but we try to keep in touch with him since he's still a big part of the team. Usually we talk through back and forth emails, but we gave Skype a shot the other day, and it seems like it might be more useful as we can talk directly, and is also easier in terms of file transfers etc. You can see Scott's epic new apartment below haha.

Tim has also been busy working on his MPPT's this week, as well as a prototype steering wheel (which looks really good). He can probably get into more specific detail about revision two of the MPPT's, but below are a couple pictures of both the latest MPPT in progress, and steering wheel.

This week, we also did some testing related to certain aspects of our array stand. The design itself is a bit too complex to go into too much detail, but the basic idea is that it consists of two tripods, each with two concentric collars that will slide inside one another, regulating the angle of a bracket that attaches to the top shell. One idea was to have a clamp that could be tightened in the location we wanted, which would have a rubber interface to facilitate the restriction of movement (kind of like the mechanism to tighten the table on some drill presses). We thought about drilling holes through both and using a pin or bolt to secure the collars where we wanted, but this way we can achieve continuous rather than discrete angles. Using the bolt hole idea also created other issues which don't really need to be mentioned. Anyways, we mounted a test sample consisting of some aluminum samples (which were up against different types of rubber) to a tensile machine (with a clevis on the top, and incline wedge grip on the bottom), to see the maximum force each material could take before slippage occurred. Both types of rubber that we tested began to slip at unacceptable levels, so we will be using a different method to hold the collars together.

We are also planning on performing some more tests on the carbon fibre tubing samples that we ordered a few weeks ago, and I will keep you guys updated on the results of those tests as well.

That's it for now... talk to you soon!

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

The 2011 World Solar Challenge

2010-10-29T23:15:00.007-05:00

The next big Solar Car Race we are working up to is the 2011 World Solar Challenge (WSC).

The World Solar Challenge across Australia first started up way back in 1987. Since then it's been the biggest Solar Car Race in the world. Qualification for the race usually starts at Hidden Valley Race Track, and qualification is done by a teams single fastest lap around the track.

From there teams drive out of Darwin and head south towards Adelaide via the Stuart highway (see race route below). The first day of the race is on October 16, 2011.

Fortunately for us navigation shouldn't be an issue when compared to the American Solar Challenge (ASC) as there is only one road to get from point A to point B. With the American Solar Challenge navigation was a key part of the race because if your team happened to leave the race route your team must re-enter the race route where you had gone off track (ie not possible to take short cuts). This could easily cost a team the race if they got lost.

Aside from the World Solar Challenge in October 2011 we will also be doing the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour (SAAT) where we travel around Alberta to test the car and make stops at schools to educate communities around Alberta about sustainable energy. This should be taking place for about a week in May 2011.

See Ya

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Additional Updates

2010-10-26T02:29:00.009-05:00

In addition to Tim's behemoth of a post, there are a few other notable updates related to the mechanical side of things.

In our attempts to shave off every pound possible from the current car, we have been looking into using carbon fibre tubing to replace various existing components on the car. Although the exact locations where we would be using the CF tubes is not yet finalized, we ordered in a few samples of different textures of the tubing... and I've gotta say, the samples look pretty awesome.

We also recently purchased our new race harness. For the next race, we will be switching from a 6-point to a 5-point harness; a decision that was made for various reasons, including the necessity for the driver to be able to not only egress out of, but also ingress into the car in a specified amount of time. Although as stated by race regulations, we could get away with a 3-point harness, we believe that a race car, such as the one we've built, deserves to be a treated as such, which warrants nothing less than a 5-point harness in our opinions.

Our latest Saturday workday was also very busy once again. The new array stand design is almost completely finished, design of our new rims is well under way, and the ribbing system we will be using to strengthen our car has also almost been finalized. Even one of our business team members (Brigitte) got involved in our activities early in the morning, as she had a sudden urge to remove a capscrew from our steering column pillar mount during a break from a business meeting.

Here's a picture of three of our newest mechanical members working on a the ribs for the top shell. (Left to right; Matt, Mark, and Chris - is Chris crying?). The first occasion of many where they will use their body weight to hold something down while 5-minute epoxy cures, I'm sure.

And obviously I can't end this post without some mention of the hockey that's been going on at the shop. For the time being the electrical team has given up on playing with us, and the business team has never played period... but inter-mechanical team match-ups are still a fun way to wrap up a busy day, and we're definitely creating quite the collection of hockey sticks at the shop... we've even dedicated a shelf just for the sticks.

With that many sticks available for use... an epic clash between the mechanical and electrical team is bound to happen soon.

Anyways, that's it for now... talk to you soon.

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

This Saturday

2010-10-24T04:45:00.026-05:00

We had yet another jam packed Saturday at the Solar Car Shop!

I can say with absolute certainty that this is probably going to be one of my longest blog posts ever! You might want to get comfortable for this one!

Last weekend...

All this talk of weight savings lately has gotten me pretty excited about the latest and greatest changes to Axiom. I got the urge to re-wire Axiom with smaller gauge wire in certain areas on the car where larger gauge wire is unnecessary. I changed out quite a number of wires that were over sized to smaller wires. From weighing out various wires I added and took off the car I'm pretty confident all this resulted in a net weight loss of about 1 lb! To put this into perspective our current weight loss goal is 150lbs.

Along with new smaller wires I also made a new slick driver controls box that I think the drivers of Axiom will really appreciate (see below).

I also re constructed the rear lights to be more durable and lighter (along with smaller gauge wire).

I also finished a design for a digital voltage regulator a while back and some of the electrical team soldered it up and assembled it. We were all pretty keen on getting it running and we were low on parts so we had to improvise. The part mix match you see in the picture below is what resulted.

The regulator attaches to a battery module and will attempt to clamp the voltage of the module to a level that is user programmable. Since its digital it's either on or off and therefore can regulate voltage much more effectively then analog equivalents. I intended it to be used to balance battery packs. You simply put the regulators on, wait for the regulators to do their thing/balance the pack, and then remove them when your done. We tested it out and it works great!

This Weekend...

Today the array guys (George and Denny) built a full solar module. They were testing out a new assembly method we have recently developed and seeing the results today I'm convinced it will put our old array modules to shame. They did have some minor problems but overall it turned out great. Unfortunately we can't show any picture's at the moment as the module was built using our new cells.

Below is Denny and George in the middle of examining the new gen module.

Also you will see in the background a carbon fiber seat (attempt #3 now I think). I have officially deemed this the biggest epic fail I have seen in my time on the UC Solar Team hehe. I hope the mech team can elaborate on this further.

The MPPT crew also got a fantastic start today. They are working on the development of the tracking algorithm for the UC Solar MPPT. So far its been going great but I have a feeling that some hardware changes to the current sensor might be in order (it's acting a bit weird) to get it tracking really nice.

The Electrical Team also assembled one board from the latest revision of our BPS(Battery protection System). It features hot-swappable chips for easy debugging and diagnosing of problems. So far it looks great. I guess we will see how it performs soon.

Today I also had quite an encounter with a stubborn Dewalt battery charger. I wanted to drill a single hole (a single hole!) in something but wouldn't you know it all the batteries in the shop were dead (thanks mech team!) and only one of our two chargers were working. I decided to take apart the busted charger to try to see what was wrong as well as attempt to fix it, chaos then ensued...

Here's me trying to charge up some of the batteries in the shop with one lonely battery charger.

I ended up having to drill out the screws to get it apart as there were tamper proof screws holding the case together. Without too much trouble I managed to drill them out and unscrew the case. Here's what I ended up having to deal with.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I opened it up. It looked like it was absolutely soaked at one point and all the parts inside slowly corroded away. This picture is actually after my attempt to fix it up (it looked worse). I replaced a few resistors as well as a transistor, and it seemed to be getting closer to working each time I made a change (more activity on the indicator light).

In the end though I was unsuccessful. I think I will keep it as an ongoing thing to work on if I get bored. If I manage to fix it I will certainly let you know.

On the other hand here is Jeff working on the new "Superboard" that will take care of all of the tritium driver controls as well as the blinker lights and possibly even telemetry. This should substantially reduce the weight and complexity of the current setup on Axiom. Once this is done we will only have three main pieces of electronics on the car. The BPS, The MPPT's, and of course the Superboard. According to past statistics this project will require one Jeff allnighter plus one Jeff-Tim allnighter. It looks like at the moment the Jeff allnighter of the project is underway...

In a few days time I will make a post about the upcoming race across Australia (upcoming next year) and what our schedule will be like.

Stay tuned!

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

First Rev MPPT(Maximum Power Point Tracker)

2010-10-20T23:20:00.015-05:00

Well I'm back with another post.

This one is about the MPPT I've been working on. The first of it's kind developed by our team. It should effectively be able to interface between our solar cell array and our battery pack, while at the same time track the maximum power point of our array.

Here's what it looks like right now. I ended up making two mistakes on the board layout that I had to fix but hey it's a first rev (I guess technically not even a first revision as it's not complete yet).

Lately I have been testing the power conversion efficiency of the boost converter portion of it. It takes a low voltage input from the solar cell array and "boosts" it up to battery pack voltage.

In the chart below output voltage was 109V and input current was 3-5 amps. I don't have enough data points as of right now to make a really nice graph all at one input current so this is what you get for now.

The y axis is efficiency and the x axis is boost ratio...

I tested mostly at high boost ratios as that's what I expect us to encounter on Axiom. Looking at this Graph it looks like we will be in the 94-95% efficiency range with the setup we are thinking of going with right now which is pretty darn good.

But really the power conversion is only half of the equation. Next is to program in a tracking algorithm to "track" the maximum power point of the array modules. This will be the next critical part of the design as a lot of energy can be gained or lost due to a good or bad tracking algorithm.

To implement the tracking algorithm the on board micro controller reads in input current and input voltage and uses those two parameters to figure out where the maximum power point of the array module is.

The MPPT also has full communication with our chase vehicle so that we know at all times if the tracker is working or not as well as contribute useful data that we can use for race strategy.

See Ya

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Tritium Motor Controllers

2010-10-20T01:42:00.006-05:00

Hi Everyone,

We currently have three Tritium Motor Controllers that are in perfect condition. We are looking to sell one or two of them as they are always just sitting around collecting dust. If anyone is interested I'm sure we can let them go at a very reasonable price.

Feel free to contact me whenever you like (my contact info is below).

Thanks!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager
University of Calgary Solar Team
Email: electrical@calgarysolarteam.ca
Cell: (403) 612-7062
www.calgarysolarteam.ca

Re-wiring and Other Updates

2010-10-17T00:41:00.009-05:00

This weekend we had yet another busy and productive workday on Saturday. The new recruits are starting to become more involved in the regular team activities, as well as learning other sub-team related essentials, such as Solidworks (CAD program the team uses) for the mechies, and soldering/wiring for the... electrical... people. Lots of work always gets done whenever we have the epoxy hand watching over us...

We (Tim) will also be re-wiring the car before the next race, mainly for the purpose of weight saving, and while switching to smaller gauge wire doesn't seem like a significant weight loss, everything adds up eventually. Tim started the re-wiring process today... can't say for sure how long it will take him (probably not that long), but I snagged a picture of him working on it.

And of course we managed to get some hockey in at the end of the day. This time the mechanical team divided into teams of four and played against each other, because the electrical team was either too busy to play, or worried that we'd beat them (most likely the latter). Was a good way to end the day.

Jeff ended the day pretty good too; relaxing on our awesome couch... can't go wrong there.

That's it for this week, keep an eye out for more team updates.

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

Weekend Summary

2010-10-12T21:57:00.007-05:00

This Saturday marked the end of yet another eventful week at the solar car garage. We had our second workday for the new recruits, as they continue to be brought up to speed on the regular activities of the team.

On the mechanical team, it was business as usual; the majority of people were working on finalizing our new seat, and finishing up the re-design of our array stand. The new recruits were busy with learning how to properly safety wire various components on the car, changing tires, and helping us in getting Axiom ready for our spontaneous outing (discussed later).

Can't say for sure what the electrical team was up to, but I can guarantee it involved solar cell encapsulating, and soldering of something or another... the usual shenanigans.

This Saturday our business team was also working at the shop, starting off with some general discussion with the rest of the team early in the morning, followed by a meeting at noon. With most of the members from the three main sub-teams at the shop it was definitely hectic, but also productive, and it was nice to see the entire team at work.

In the late afternoon, we decided to take our car out for a spin on the highway to try and obtain some useful power-velocity data and generate some empirical curves. It was a successful venture all-around, and it was awesome to once again see the reactions from our fellow Calgarians as we took to our country's national highway. Hopefully more trips like this are not too far around the corner!

When we got back to the shop, and after getting Axiom back inside the garage, we took a break from the days work and managed to get a few games of hockey in - mechanical team vs. electrical team of course. We usually play a best of 3 series... first to two goals in each game wins (will probably need a table pretty soon to document the standings). Anyways, bottom line, each team won one series, bringing the overall score to 2-1 in the electrical team's favor. It got pretty competitive and we even broke a stick early on.

Anyways, that's what we've been up to this past week... stay tuned for more team updates!

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

Weekend Highlights

2010-10-04T22:31:00.008-05:00

Well another awesome week has gone by and Solar Car is in full swing.

This was the first official workday for the new recruits and it was a memorable one. We started out by making multi-vibrator circuits which essentially everyone succeeded in getting to work after a few tries. We also did some re-wiring on our first solar car ever, Soleon...

The veteran array crew was in full build mode assembling and testing modules and cells. Here's a picture of some electrical team members building some solar module jigs and preparing to build modules.

We moved the old prototype top shell out of the "forest" to test some new interesting ideas on it. Its already hacked up pretty good from when we used it to test our egress door system, which worked out fairly well by the way. I'm not sure exactly what John and Ed are doing here but I thought it looked funny so I snapped a picture hehe...

Here's something pretty interesting that I'm currently working on. I built our first revision MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) the other day and so far with a little bit of tweaking I'm already getting 93% power conversion efficiency! I didn't expect to get much over 80% on the first run so I guess it turned out much better then expected. I also programmed in a very simple tracking loop and it appears to be tracking cells incredibly well. I don't quite understand how its going so smoothly...

Also, apparently I like multimeter's too much....

The day can't be complete without some good old hockey night in Canada! In this match it was the Electrical team vs the Mechanical team and the Electrical team seized victory late in the 3rd period!

We continued to play until we couldn't see anymore...

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Axiom Weight Loss Program

2010-10-02T16:42:00.006-05:00

Although our team is extremely happy with the performance of our solar car during the last race we participated in (the American Solar Challenge (ASC) 2010), we believe that the sheer weight of our car prevented us from obtaining an even higher standard of performance. At approximately 600 pounds, we were one of, if not the heaviest car that competed at the race, and although we won the Mechanical Engineering Excellence Award (which acknowledged the efficient mechanical functionality of the car), some aspects of our car are unnecessarily strong - the root cause of our less than desirable weight. Since the end of the race, however, our team has begun to locate possible areas of improvement on the car in preparation for the 2011 World Solar Challenge (WSC) in Australia. In order to ensure successful modifications to the car before the next race we have implemented the “Schulich Axiom Weight Loss Program”. The goal of this program is to reduce the weight of the car to an ideal 450 pounds. In order to accomplish this goal our team has pinpointed certain areas on the car that are too heavy and need to be reduced in weight. So far the team has rebuilt a few components, such as the seat, and the lid for the battery storage compartment. These modifications and a few others are briefly summarized as follows:

Component Initial Weight Modified Weight Weight Saving
Battery box lid 1.44 lb 0.50 lb 0.94 lb
Motor Controller casing/mount 2.00 lb 0.22 lb 1.78 lb
Seat 6.60 lb 1.50 lb 5.10 lb
Batteries 55.0 lb 46.2 lb 8.80 lb
Weather-proofing 5.00 lb 1.00 lb 4.00 lb

Total Savings = 20.62 lb

In addition to the changes listed above, we will also be remaking the top shell of the car, due to regulations on the permitted area of the solar cell array. This component will undoubtedly constitute the bulk of our weight reductions, as we are hoping that this will remove 75 pounds from the overall weight. This decrease is due to factors such as the use of less material during the encapsulation of the cells, and less fiber during the production of the shell (a fiber reduction from four layers to two removes roughly 25 pounds alone).

Even small weight savings to the car are significant, as every pound is directly linked to its power consumption. We will continue to search for more ways to make Schulich Axiom even lighter so that we can exceed the benchmark that we’ve set in previous races!

Recruitment

2010-09-23T23:16:00.003-05:00

Hey Everyone!

This is my first time posting on the blog, so allow me to briefly introduce myself. My name is John Fernando; I have been on the Solar Team for almost exactly two years now, and have taken over Scott's position as Mechanical Engineering Manager on the team since he left for his internship in Switzerland as of July 2010. I look forward to posting updates on the weekly activities of the team as we get our car race-ready once again for the next solar race!

Today (September 23rd), we had our first of two Fall recruitment sessions in our attempts to fill the voids that will be left behind by many of our soon-to-be graduated senior members. There was an impressive turnout to the event, and equally impressive enthusiasm from those present. I think it would be fair to chalk up this evident enthusiasm at least somewhat to our electrical engineering manager's recruitment speech, which contained everything from descriptions of solar cell encapsulation methods to a discussion of our motor/motor controller, and even a relevantly altered John F. Kennedy quote (... three guesses which one). Hopefully our second meeting will be just as successful as the one today.

On a more serious note, we found out yesterday that the Dunlop Solarmax D850 tires that we have been using for some time on our cars will not be permitted for use in WSC 2011. This adds a couple more things to our "to-do" list, namely research into new tires, and the design of rims to accommodate the selected tires.

I will try my best to keep you guys up-to-date on any progress of the mechanical team... And remember, "ask not what your solar car team can do for you--ask what you can do for your solar car team", as Tim said - a mentality I'm glad our entire team possesses.

Talk to you soon!

John Fernando
Mechanical Engineering Manager

New Shop Equipment

2010-09-23T17:02:00.009-05:00

Hi Everyone!

Here's some pictures of new fancy equipment we have in the shop!

We received a brand new band saw that has never been used (It had never been wired up before we got it) that has apparently been sitting around somewhere at the university for quite a number of years.

The new band saw is absolutely awesome. This is definitely saying something as I usually don't get all that excited about mechanical equipment. I usually get excited about the new capacitors, integrated circuits, or resistors that I get to play around with.

Anyway It even has a blade welder, grinder, on the fly speed control, and two work lights, so that when the blade snaps for any reason you simply take it off, weld it back together, and within minutes your back to cutting again!

It even has a blower to clear the cutting area of dust while your cutting which allows you to cut through materials that would otherwise make you lose your place half way into a cut.

We also got a full mill! Its been very well used at the University and the University was just going to get rid of it so we told them we could put it to good use! We still need to get it wired up, clean it, and get tooling for it, but once those things are done we have a fully functional mill!

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

PCB Designs

2010-09-20T17:34:00.005-05:00

Well I'm back with another post!

Over the past week or two Jeff has been slowly building his IV tracer (Solar Cell tester) into something that will be easily usable for the team. Well he's been having plenty of issues with high resistance due to the current bread-boarded layout. It finally looks like I convinced him to put his design onto a real PCB (Printed Circuit Board). Here's Jeff working on the new sleek design of the IV tracer.

Me on the other hand finished up the first revision of the UC Solar MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker)! Basically it tracks the maximum power point of the array and acts as an interface between the solar cells/modules and the battery pack. Below is a snapshot of what the PCB layout looks like at the moment.

I have also updated the BPS (Battery protection System) to improve reliability further (even though we had very few problems with it thus far) and to make it more modular with hot swappable components.

Anyway I'm hoping we will get our PCB designs sent off for production sometime this week and then be able to test out our designs the following week.

Also to all students that are interested in building and working on really neat stuff like this should come to the UC Solar Car recruitment session this week. Its being held this Thursday Sept 23 at 6:30PM in ENC 328 (Engineering C Block, 3rd floor). Alternatively, you can meet with us on Tuesday October 5 at 6:30pm in Science A 147.

See Ya There!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

First Official Saturday Workday

2010-09-18T22:15:00.008-05:00

Well we had our first official workday for the new school year.

We had a productive day and managed to strip down Axiom in a few hours. Lately we have been focusing on weight reductions and so in the process of stripping the car we weighed many of the components. We have identified some key areas for weight reductions and have already started to come up with ideas to accomplish goals we have set.

One example is the battery box lid. We remade the battery box lid with less Kevlar and epoxy and managed to trim about 1 lb off the old lid weight! For something as small and unassuming as the battery box lid this is a real savings! We even decided to include a beautiful looking carbon fiber lightning bolt in the design.

The business team also joined us in the morning (which unfortunately I don't have any pictures of) but they proceeded to get down to well... what did you expect... business!

Unfortunately all of the pictures I took were later in the day as I was busy in the morning with getting the rest of the electrical team up to speed on soldering solar cells, making modules, and taking apart one of our motors for inspection.

Later in the day though I caught this interesting sight of some Mechanical team member's discussing something quite vigorously.

(From left to right) John, Mico, Yanyi

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Back in Business

2010-09-15T18:59:00.005-05:00

Well School has started back up again and everyone has been busy getting their books and things ready for school...

On the other hand Solar Car is back up and running! We have our first work day this Saturday and best of all the Business team will be joining the Engineering teams to help out with various things around the shop and also to allow everyone to get to know each other a little better.

On the electrical side of things Jeff has been up to his usual shenanigans and somehow successfully built an IV tracer in three days (see picture below). After getting it running really good the plan is to test out a number of cells and then send them off to one of our sponsors Day4Energy to verify the results on their professional tester.

Me on the other hand finished up the PCB layout for the first revision of the UC Solar MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker). Its looking really good and if it works out the way I hope it will, it should replace our current MPPT's which are severely limited by the input/output voltages they can do.

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Whats New?

2010-08-19T22:58:00.003-05:00

Well the race is over and everything has been put back in its usual place in the shop. I got all the electrical tools back in there proper places and both the electrical and mechanical teams have begun work on some new developments.

We hope to make it to the 2011 World Solar Challenge in Australia where the top Solar car teams in the world go to compete. We have started working on a number of improvements to the car for the next race and thus have fallen back into semi-secrecy.

One of the developments we are working on we think will be a Solar Car first which no other team or car has ever attempted, let alone succeeded...

See Ya!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering manager

Awards from ASC2010

2010-06-27T17:27:00.003-05:00

I've got one more quick update for you from the American Solar Challenge; the Calgary Solar Team received two awards during the closing ceremonies.

The Mechanical Award recognizes excellence in the mechanical systems of the car, and we'd like to specially congratulate our Mechanical Manager, Scott Nesbitt on the success.

The Sportsmanship Award was given to us as part of a three way tie. It was great to see so much cooperation between the different solar teams, and as we are recognized for helping other teams during scrutineering, we'd also like to thank the teams that helped us out. This is what ASC is all about!

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

Calgary Finishes American Solar Challenge

2010-06-26T13:20:00.002-05:00

Calgary just finished the American Solar Challenge, driving almost 2000 km from Tulsa to Chicago across the United States!

We placed 6th out of the sixteen teams who originally showed up to the qualifier in Cresson, Texas last week. It has been an amazing experience and we would like to offer our congratulations to all the teams who completed and are completing the race today, and a very special thank you to everybody who made our journey possible.

Maybe we'll take a small break to celebrate and we'll be back to work in preparation for the World Solar Challenge in no time!

Again, a very special thank you to everyone who has contributed to this project, including the Schulich School of Engineering, ConocoPhillips, the Antje Graupe Pryor Foundation, EPCOR, Shell Canada, Nexen Canada, and the Haskayne School of Business. And of course, to all of our fans who have been following us and cheering us on, thank you. If you would like to make a small contribution to the team, we invite you to consider adopting a cell.

Have a great summer everybody, and check back soon to see what we'll be up to in the coming months.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair and Business Manager

American Solar Challenge: DAY 4

2010-06-23T21:48:00.004-05:00

We reached Rolla, MO today, holding our position again on really hilly terrain. We had no problems with the car on the trip; our testing in Alberta was extremely helpful, and has paid off on the race here.

However, we did have an issue with one panel on the array while we were stopped with the battery removed from the car. What happened was what's called a "thermal runaway," where one panel was essentially attacked by the remaining ones. The car was sitting in the sun, and because the battery had been removed and there was nowhere for the energy to go, it was forced backwards through the lowest voltage panel, creating enough heat to destroy the encapsulation. This is what the panel looks like now:

The problem has now been fixed so it won't happen to any remaining cells, but that one is completely dead. Taiwan actually had the exact same problem as us, but have also worked it now.

Despite the issues, we're having a great time with the other teams. We got into Rolla today with lots of time to spare, and got a game of football going with Michigan.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

American Solar Challenge: DAY 3

2010-06-23T07:39:00.004-05:00

It's a day late, but here's our update from yesterday. We held our position as we stopped over in Jefferson City for the checkpoint on leg 2. Jefferson was the nicest checkpoint we've seen so far; their capital building is spectacular, and I'm attaching some pictures for you to see.

Today, we will be stopping at Rolla, MO in one of the harder stretches of this race. The terrain is very hilly, which some of the top teams have been having a lot of trouble with. Fortunately, we did a lot of testing in the foothills on our Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour, so we're expecting this to be a good section for us.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

Some Pictures

2010-06-21T18:46:00.008-05:00

This picture was taken by Merlin Nagel with Missouri S&T of us doing a hot pit during the Formula Sun Grand Prix.

* * * *

This one was from this morning with our array stand. The array stand holds the solar panels at a steep angle to better catch the sunrise's energy before we head out for the day.

* * * *

Finally, one showing a close up of the cells and our school's logo

American Solar Challenge: DAY 2

2010-06-21T16:58:00.002-05:00

Today we finished the first leg of the American Solar Challenge, arriving in Topeka in the afternoon, after moving up another spot to 4th place (we're gaining! Thanks to everyone who's been cheering us on!).

It was been eventful today. After one of our four solar panel trackers stopped working, Tim had to rewire the array to work through the remaining three. We finished that just in time to hit the road as soon as we were cleared to, after spending the night in a small town named Butler.

On the road, we managed to shear a tire completely off its rim on some rough railroad tracks, while two vehicles managed to get between Axiom and our lead vehicle. An emergency stop was called, but because of those vehicles, lead was a kilometer ahead of Axiom when they pulled over. Lead has all the equipment needed for a tire change.

The end result was a frantic sprint across that kilometer, carrying all the required equipment back to Axiom. Yes, we got everybody safely off the tracks, and yes a train did come in the time we were pulled over. (Two, actually.)

As soon as we got that worked out and were moving again, we were hit by a tough rain storm, but like we've been planning all along, we drove through it and it eventually passed, giving us a clear path for the rest of the day.

Talk to you soon,
Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

American Solar Challenge: DAY 1

2010-06-20T22:08:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day of the American Solar Challenge! We crossed the start line in 6th place and in the first day have moved up to 5th. We're also bunking at the same hotel as Bochum and Minnesota tonight who are in second and third, since we're really close on the route. It's still pretty tight between most of us.

The car is performing really well, and we're ready to push her hard to Topeka tomorrow, where we'll have actual results from the first leg of the race!

Thanks for everybody's support and good luck to everybody on the race.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

Schulich Axiom has qualified for the American Solar Challenge

2010-06-16T21:16:00.003-05:00

Great news everybody,

Today, in the first day of the Formula Sun Grand Prix, we met the 100 lap requirement in order to race in the quickly approaching American Solar Challenge. Over the next two days, we'll continue racing and adding to our total lap count, in order to gain a better starting position for the cross-American tour.

It's been a long time working up to this; we're thrilled to make this announcement, and are looking forward to ASC 2010! I'll leave you with a short video of Axiom making a pass on the track from today.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

All Systems Are Go!

2010-06-14T19:03:00.002-05:00

We have received the all ok from the race officials so we are now able to race (safety wise) in the American solar challenge. We still need to qualify for the race by meeting a certain lap requirement on the race track which starts on Wednesday!

Good Luck and see you out there!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Scruitineering

2010-06-13T17:47:00.003-05:00

We have passed the dynamic portion of scruitineering! This means that Axiom has performed and passed the braking, slalom, and figure eight tests!

Calgary is now the first team qualified to race in the Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) and we will be looking forward to see more teams complete scruit over the next two days! We are not yet qualified for the American Solar Challenge (ASC) as we need to weigh some of our spare battery modules so that the race officials can confirm our battery pack is under the 25KG weight limit for our Li-Polymer batteries.

Good luck and see you out there!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Go Team Canada!

2010-06-11T23:29:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

We just received word that the University of Waterloo will not be competing alongside us at the American Solar Challenge. Although we were looking forward to seeing them here, we are also excited to be representing our country at this international competition as the only Canadian team.

We promise to do our best, and we hope we'll make you proud, Canada!

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

Cresson, Tx

2010-06-11T10:06:00.004-05:00

Hi Everyone

We have made it down to Cresson Texas, and are just about ready for the start of scruitineering. It is very hot down here and the sun is much more intense compared to Calgary so we should be able to get a lot more power from the array on a good day.

The rest of our team has finished doing some race logistics and have met up with us so now there are sixteen race team members here. Today though we will be finishing up just a few small things to get fully prepared for scruit. We have to finish up putting labels on Axiom as well as clean her out again.

So far we have only seen one other team and we will looking forward to see more teams as they arrive.

Go Calgary Solar Team!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

American Solar Challenge

2010-06-07T23:46:00.002-05:00

Hi everybody,

It's been an eventful trip down to the start of the American Solar Challenge. We're currently running the entire race route backwards, and making notes about where problematic and important spots are.

However, we've been running into problems with all of our gasoline powered vehicles. We even spent most of this morning at a shop getting three of them looked at. Who would have thought that it would be the non-prototype vehicles giving us far more issues than Schulich Axiom ever did?

Fortunately, we're finding the problems now, before the race, and we can work them out before it means we're loosing time on them. But sadly, it's put us behind schedule for completing our run of the race route, and the two day grace period we scheduled in for ourselves has now shrunk to one day.

We'll keep you posted, and hopefully get the normal cars all fixed up so they aren't holding back Axiom on the race.

Brandon Heenan
Project Co-Chair, Business Manager

Just a Quick Update

2010-06-06T11:11:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone,

Well, the trip to ASC is finally underway! At the moment we are currently headed towards Naperville, IL from Fargo, ND. The plan is to be in Naperville tonight and Rolla, MO by the end of tomorrow. There were some issues with a solar panel and getting a replacement made in time, so as a result some of us left Calgary rather late. But in the end it all worked out. We also crossed the border without any hitches (thankfully) and can only hope the rest of the trip will be as smooth sailing as it’s been so far.

Anyways, that’s about all we’ve been up to! Be sure to check back later for frequent blog updates.

-Bryan

The Final Countdown!

2010-06-01T12:44:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone,

So, if you've been counting down with the team based on our last few posts, you will know that there are only 3 days until we leave for ASC! (and if you haven't been keeping track, now you know) On Friday morning of this week, we will be driving off for Cresson, TX, where the Formula Sun Grand Prix is being held. This is a pre-ASC, post-scrutineering qualifying event that requires us to demonstrate that Axiom is road-worthy, and also allows us to complete laps around the race track to improve poll position for ASC.

Also, to better prepare for the race, we are planning to drive to the Chicago metropolitan area (the finish point for ASC), and drive the race route backwards, so that we are familiar with the route, and aware of any tricky intersections, stop light chains, etc.

I should probably summarize the race route and format for everyone right here, just so everyone has an idea of where we will be on each day. The format involves three 2-day stages, and a final 1-day "sprint" to the finish line, giving a 7-day race in total. For the 2-day stages, there is a stage stop city that must be reached by the end of the 2nd day of that stage, and an intermediate, "checkpoint" city that must be reached by the end of the 1st day.

After reaching the checkpoint on the 1st day of the stage, we are required to continue racing until the end of the race day, which is 6:00 pm. Therefore, we will start the 2nd day of each stage somewhere between the checkpoint city and stage stop city.

The sequence of checkpoints and stage stops, including distances between each city, is summarized below:

Stage 1
Day 1: Leave Broken Arrow, OK, must reach checkpoint, Neosho, MO (118 miles)
Day 2: Must reach stage stop, Topeka, KS (242 miles)
Stage 2
Day 3: Leave Topeka, checkpoint, Jefferson City, MO (216 miles)
Day 4: Stage stop, Rolla, MO (148 miles)
Stage 3
Day 5: Leave Rolla, checkpoint, Alton, IL (163 miles)
Day 6: Stage stop, Normal, IL (197 miles)
Stage 4
Day 7: Final sprint to Naperville, IL (110 miles)

The race begins on June 20th, and ends on the 26th, with the awards ceremony being that evening. As a side note, Naperville is actually a city within the Chicago metropolitan area, it was decided by race officials to avoid the heart of Chicago during the solar race, most likely for traffic concerns.

As for team preparations, we are completing the last few finishing touches on the car, and we plan to practice the dynamic tests such as slalom and braking that will be tested in scrutineering either today or tomorrow. Our testing day at Hanna was a bit lighter than usual, but another major success -- we got Axiom up to 127 km/h on the track straightaway, which is a new speed record for the team! We probably could have got her going faster, but we didn't have enough track, and, no sense risking Axiom (and our driver's safety) just for a "bragging-rights" number, especially so close to the race date.

The whole team, especially those of us who have been around for the whole Gen3/Axiom design and production process, are extremely proud of what Axiom has become, growing from nothing, to an idea, to a computer model, then into production parts, a prototype, and now finally into the amazing solar car we have now! It's been over 18 months since our design process on the car really started, and lots of headaches, frustrations, long long nights, but through the hard work of everyone on the team (not just those of us going on the race), we have a car that we all believe can do really well in ASC. Hopefully we will have lots to celebrate on June the 26th!

Anyways, we will be making blog updates as frequently as possible after we leave on Friday, to let you all know what we are up to. Watch for us on TV as well as on internet news sites during the race!

Cheers, and hopefully you'll hear from me soon,

Joseph

SAAT Recap and this Week's Plans

2010-05-25T01:23:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone,

This is Joseph again with my regular Monday (sort of) update from the Solar Car team. Brandon has been doing a great job with updates during the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour while we were extremely busy on the engineering side, but now, Tim, Scott, and myself should be able to make our regular weekly posts.

So, our race team returned from the SAAT on Sunday afternoon, which was by all accounts a huge success for everyone involved! We were able to visit 5 schools in 5 different cities during our trip, fix a whole bunch of bugs, get our drivers lots of practice, and of course, learn to work better as an entire race unit.

Some of the highlights of the tour included signing autographs for kids at one school visit, having a herd of cows run with us for a bit as Axiom drove by (they were behind their fence of course), camping in spectacular Elk Island National Park (and setting up a spectacular base camp as well), being helped through a very busy highway intersection, impromptu by a local policewoman, seeing almost every bystander and passing motorist gawk at Axiom and our convoy, and many more memorable experiences and stories that helped us grow as individuals and as a team.

From a race engineering point of view, as the days went on, things ran more and more smoothly. We were able to practice emergency stops, perform merges and passing manoeuvers on highways, and everyone became more comfortable in their specific roles on the team. GPS logging was used effectively to make sure we kept to the correct route, radio communications between vehicles were streamlined and efficient, and wind speed data was collected at regular intervals by our scout vehicle to inform us of headwinds or crosswinds. And of course, Axiom performed admirably (as usual) despite some un-co-operative weather.

Next up, we have a busy week after taking a day off today (a Civic holiday in Canada). Tuesday will be our third and final day of track testing in Hanna, mostly for driver experience, the big difference being we will be making the 3-hour drive up there in convoy formation with Axiom, rather than pulling her in the trailer as before.

Later in the week, we have a media event with Breakfast Television (a local TV program) on Wednesday, and a track day for the media on Thursday afternoon at Race City in Southeast Calgary.

There's still lots of preparation before we leave for ASC on June 4th (only 11 days away -- wow!) Stay posted for updates!

Cheers,
Joseph

Day 5 of SAAT

2010-05-22T03:22:00.002-05:00

Today we finished our last school visit, completing the educational outreach portion of our tour. Thanks to all the schools we visited for having us. We hope you learned a lot, and had as much fun as we did. You guys have been extremely welcoming; the picture above being a great example of that.

For the next two days, we’re at a retreat in Sundre, where we’ll be working on fixing all the issues we discovered over the past week, weather proofing the car, and finalizing everything in preparation for track testing next week and ASC next month!

2010-05-20T01:02:00.006-05:00

Hey again,

We’re really seeing the value in testing today. I told you about the interesting issues we’ve having over the past couple days; last night we discovered the root cause for the majority of them. A piece of carbon fibre had fallen off the weather proofing and was shorting out the motor in the back. It had been giving us interesting errors, like only driving backwards and completely cutting out after the car sat in the heat for a while.

We sorted that problem out before hitting the road this morning, and everything has gone smoothly. We even got into today’s school visit a half hour early in Wainwright, Alberta. The kids there were really excited to see the solar car; we even signed a few autographs.

Tonight, we’ve set up base camp in Elk Island National Park. We’ve set up a makeshift machine shop and garage, and are making further modifications to Axiom. We’re still having issues with not having enough torque at very low speeds, making it hard to start from a stop when going uphill.

I’ll keep you posted on that, and we’ll be heading off for a school visit in Westlock tomorrow.

Brandon

First Couple Days of the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour

2010-05-18T23:36:00.006-05:00

Hi everybody,

this is my first post, so let me introduce myself; my name is Brandon Heenan and I'm the business manager and project co-chair for the team. I'm going to be updating you about our progress on the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour this week, since the engineers you've been hearing from in the previous posts are busy making tweaks, modifications and fixes to Axiom.

Hopefully you managed to catch our send off on the news yesterday or today, but if not, here are a couple links to get you up to speed:

· Global TV - May 17 "early news (http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/video/index.html)
· CTV news at noon May 17, CTV news at 6:00 (http://calgary.ctv.ca/)
· U of C video story (http://www.jetvision.tv/video.aspx?videoID=53524&playerID=2)
· Calgary Herald – video story (http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/videos/index.html#h1O42QX5fgTrl_gK1m4giW36c_zkvpZ1)

So we just got into our campground at Oyen after an eventful first couple days. This was the first time we had Axiom running solely under the power of her own solar cells so there were some kinks to work out and we ended up leaving Calgary about an hour after schedule. We had perfect weather for our departure in Calgary but ended up running into heavy rain just west of the city which delayed our first school visit. But once we got there, the rest of the day was smooth. So Axiom had her first school visit yesterday at Notre Dame Colligiate Jr/Sr High in High River. I’m attaching a picture of us there.

Today, we again had issues in the morning, and blew a switch that controls the flow of power from the solar array. However, once we had that sorted out, we had Axiom cruising at 100 km/h and continued expanding our community outreach program in Alberta, presenting at River Heights Elementary in Medicine Hat. We arrived safely in Oyen this evening, and are busy switching out the motor with another one.

Another note; we really surprised some police officers at a speed trap today with probably the weirdest car they’ve seen on the job. We got a pretty good picture of their reaction, which I put at the top of this post.

Brandon

Hanna, Day 2

2010-05-13T01:56:00.004-05:00

Like Joseph said we had another fantastic day driving Axiom. We concluded driving on Saturday after attaining a top speed of 120km/h and logging in several hours of driving training for each of the four drivers.

We did have some minor electrical issues that we're affecting telemetry (wireless data) back from the car but did not drastically affect the operation of the car and so we we're able to drive without any major issues. The problem ended up being a software issue and has since been resolved. The battery pack performed great and after performing a few minor software changes to the motor controller the motor was running smoother then ever. I believe the low-end torque problems we we're experiencing last time at the track were also fixed by these changes.

The Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour is also fast approaching and we are due to leave on Monday. We have completed the panels (which look great) and so we will begin to attach panels to the car tomorrow. Once the panels are on the car we are ready to drive!

Here is a picture of the team taking a break with Axiom near the pit stop area of the Hanna track.

You can also see how the panels will be arranged on the car from the yellow voids... Stay tuned to see pictures of the finished car!

See Ya

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Hanna, Day 2

2010-05-11T03:05:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone,

So, after another Saturday of testing Axiom up in Hanna, it's time for another update on the team's progress with testing of the car.

The weather was much more co-operative than last week, more sunshine and a lot less wind, which put everyone in a slightly better mood. The biggest goal for the day was to get all our solar car and convoy vehicle drivers some practice driving in race formations.

We drove as a main convoy (lead, solar car, and chase vehicles) for most of the day, and got to practicing some passing manoeuvers, oncoming-traffic situations, and other scenarios we would most likely have to deal with during the race.

As for Axiom's performance, again she outdid our expectations, with no major problems except for a few finnicky tires. The electrical systems worked without a hitch thanks to the tireless work of Tim and Jeff (our engineering manager) the night before. Tim will likely update you on electrical performance by Wednesday.

One of the highlights of the day was when our entire convoy managed to reach a speed of 120 km/h on one of the straight sections of the track.

This speed is particularly significant to the team because it represents the highest speed ever reached by our previous car, Schulich I. Knowing that we reached this speed with Axiom, even with key aerodynamic components missing, gives us more confidence that we can do really well next month at ASC. It will definitely be awesome to find out the maximum speed we can get Axiom up to!

Finally, we took a whole bunch of pictures and videos on Saturday; here is a vid of a drive-by of our convoy at the track -- definitely much cooler than still pictures!

My next update will be just before we depart on the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour, hopefully everything will be ready to roll by then!

Talk to you next Monday,

Joseph

Hanna Track Testing, Part 2

2010-05-06T13:38:00.007-05:00

Well another week has gone by and we had another great day driving Axiom at the high speed test track near Hanna last Saturday. The weather managed to turn around and it ended up being a great day.

We had some electrical issues involving pre-charge (start-up sequence of the car) and also telemetry (live streaming data from the car) but other then that we ran the car all day and got a few good hours of driver training and car testing in. We achieved a speed of 95km/h on one pass and still had plenty more to go but due to the condition of the track we decided to not push our luck.

We also seem to have very low torque from the motor at very low speeds (crawling) because on the first run out we managed to get stuck in a small rut in the road. This is most likely due to the current configuration of the motor controller and should be easily fixable by reprogramming it with a laptop.

We will be taking the car back to the Hanna track this Saturday again to get more testing in. That's assuming of course that the weather turns around (there is snow on the ground now).

Also we have been working tirelessly on the array the past week or so and are set to complete the panels today! After the panels are complete it will just be a matter of mounting them on the car.

See Ya

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Hanna Track Testing, Part 1

2010-05-03T18:11:00.005-05:00

Hey all,

It's Monday again, so time for a race update from our team. Two big things to update you on, the first involving the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour. As I mentioned last week, the team is planning to take Axiom on a tour around Alberta in a few weeks, and now we have finalized a schedule of the cities and towns that we will be bringing Axiom through on each day:

Day 1: May 17th - Leave Calgary, end day in Fort MacLeod
Day 2: May 18th - Oyen
Day 3: May 19th - Elk Island National Park
Day 4: May 20th - Drayton Valley
Day 5: May 21st - Stettler
Day 6: May 22nd - Sundre
Day 7: May 23rd - Hussar, drive home at end of day

The other big news involves our first Saturday of testing of Axiom at the test track up in Hanna, which is about a 3-hour drive east of Calgary.

We took Axiom up to the huge track (about 3-4 miles all the way around) and got some high(er)-speed practice for our drivers, who did laps around the track while several of us followed in a chase vehicle, and the rest did some random work like constructing our new array stand.

All in all, the day was a success, barring some minor electrical and mechanical issues (which Tim and Scott will probably discuss in their posts this week). We will be going back to the track next Saturday for some characterization tests on the car (this is where the real race engineering stuff takes place), it will be great to see how the car performs at different speeds in terms of real physical numbers.

Anyways, keep watching for more updates on the Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour, including what schools we will be visiting in each city, as well as more info from Part 2 at Hanna next week. In the meantime, here's a cool shot of Axiom on the track.

Talk to you next week,

Joseph

Electrical Stuff

2010-04-28T18:47:00.003-05:00

Well another week has gone by and there has not been a lot of activity in the electrical dept. as of late but with exams finishing up at the end of this week we should be back in business soon. We will be going to the racetrack this Saturday to do some high speed testing, and hopefully if the weather turns around (its raining right now) it will be another great day driving Axiom.

Below I have posted some pictures of one of the many panels that will be going onto the car. Thirty Four of these types of panels will be going onto the car along with 6 other custom panels to fit tricky areas of the car (you might be able to see the areas in the other pictures Scott posted). Anyway as you can see the panels are 11 cells by 5 cells, each cell is about 2 volts, and so when they are all connected in series (they have not been connected yet) the panel is easily over 100 volts.

The panel that you see has been encapsulated (what I talked about in my previous post). It has been laminated inside of a clear protective material that protects the cells from moisture and physical damage whilst being very light transmissive.

See Ya

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Announcing...

2010-04-27T14:44:00.003-05:00

Hi all,

This is Joseph again. I know my weekly Monday post is a day late, but chock that one up to final exams and projects taking their toll. But I'm free as of this morning, free to do more work for the Solar Car team, and to make the announcement I promised last week.

As a team, besides building awesome solar-powered cars, we are committed to educating people about the use of alternative energy sources, as well as becoming involved in our local and provincial community. In keeping with these goals, the Calgary Solar Car Team is pleased to announce the "Schulich Axiom Alberta Tour"!

OK, so I'm sure you're all asking what this is... Basically, during the week of May 17th to the 23rd, the team is planning to take the car out on a "mock race" around Alberta, to improve our efficiency as a team in a race setting, and find any faults in our car, and correct them before ASC.

In addition, we are planning to visit a different city on each day of the tour, and show off the car at one (or more) schools in each city. In this way, school kids and their teachers in more rural and/or remote areas of the province will have the opportunity to see a fully-functioning solar-powered car, something that they might not have a chance to do otherwise!

More details will be given in next week's post (hopefully on Monday this time), including where we will be stopping on each day during the Alberta Tour!

In the meantime, now that exams are winding town, people are starting to drift back into the shop, to get the car ready for our big testing day this Saturday. We will taking Axiom up to a race track in Hanna do some high-speed testing (i.e. to see what she can really do!), and of course, to get more real-time experience for our four drivers.

Check back next week to see if Axiom is coming to an Alberta community near you, not to mention for pictures from our day at the race track!

Cheers until next week,

Joseph Fernando
Race Engineering Manager

Mechanical Updates

2010-04-24T20:41:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone,

This is my first time posting to the blog so let me introduce myself. My name is Scott Nesbitt and I am the Mechanical Engineering Manager for the team. In the past two and a half year with the team I have seen tremendous growth and advances, here's just a few more to add to the list.

As previously mentioned the car was out in lot 10 here at the U of C on the weekend of April 10th and 11th. While the car has been designed over a lengthy 12 months (compared to our previous car's 9 month design and build cycles), the first time a vehicle is tested is always a nerve racking event until you know that everything works as it's supposed to; especially when testing occurs so close to exams (fretting over exams is enough in itself for any engineer). To no one's surprise though the car handled perfectly, nay, fantastically. Compared to Schulich I body roll has been virtually eliminated in cornering and I'm proud to say the figure 8 test was completed in only 6.7 seconds (regulations require 9 seconds). One minor ergonomic issue was identified, but with a modification of the brake pedal the car will be more comfortable to drive than a couch! Here's a teaser picture taken post-testing, showing the driver's seat and our brand new 2 piece moulded carbon fiber steering wheel.
When your part of the solar team though you always know that with fun comes fun work, and that couldn't be further from the truth after testing was completed. In the week following testing, Bondo and sanding work commenced on the shells again. Now that that work is done, the top shell of the car has been aligned perfectly with the bottom shell and any gaps between the two have been filled...on to painting! After removing parts from the car and covering any non-removable parts, the shells were primed and painted. After painting the prototype car with metallic silver we decided to keep the colour as everyone agreed it looked amazing although we did make a small change to the type of paint we used due to issues with flaking on the prototype. I'm sure you'll agree the paint job turned out great, here's a few shots as the car looks today following painting. (Sorry about the quality, I'm not much of a photographer.)

Cheers,

Scott

The Solar Cell Array

2010-04-21T18:47:00.005-05:00

Well now that everyone is busy with exams the shop is pretty quiet. One of the many things I've been looking forward to talking about for a while now has been the solar cell array. The array is the power house of the car and the main factor as to how well the car will do in the upcoming race.

For the first time ever the UC Solar Team is constructing its own array. In the past we have outsourced the work to an industry professional. Constructing an array all on our own is no small feat. Assembling almost 2000 cells into a large 6m^2 array is very painstaking and delicate work. Also at 4 connecting pads per cell this means that roughly 8000 tabs will have to be cut, bent, and soldered. The cells are also incredibly fragile and a slip up can result in instant solar cell conffeti (I know from experience). There is also another process that must be done to the cells before they go onto the car called encapsulation but that will be for next week.

Building the array in house has many advantages though. We we're able, with the help of one of our sponsors (Day4Energy) to test each cell we had in stock (about 2200) and eliminate bad cells as well as match compatible cells with each other to optimize the array. We we're also able to manufacture the panels in odd shapes to fit certain areas of the car as well as make last minute changes to the array layout.

The array team is now working on panel #13 counting down from 35 so only about a third of the array remains to be completed...

See ya next week.

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

Axiom in Action!

2010-04-19T13:14:00.007-05:00

Hi all,

As promised, a new post to update everyone on what the race engineering team has been up to. Like the last post mentioned, the team was out driving our new car in Lot 10 at the university last Saturday and Sunday. One of the biggest goals of the weekend was to make sure that Axiom, besides just looking great, could handle the rigors of being out in a real driving scenario.

From a race engineering point of view, some things that we look out for included ease of driver control, durability, and ability to satisfy the requirements of the ASC scrutineering tests.

After getting some driving time for each of our 4 drivers, we set up some performance tests which we would be required to pass before running in ASC. As we had all hoped, Axiom (and our drivers) gave some "A+" performances! For both the figure-8 and slalom courses, Axiom easily beat the required time for scrutineering, under two different drivers in each case!

Next up for Axiom (after final exams) will be two weekend dates at a race track in Hanna, May 1st and 8th. Besides getting hours of in-car time for our drivers, we hope to get some power usage data from Axiom, which will be extremely useful on the race in June.

Look out for more updates from the electrical and mechanical teams this week, as well as some pictures to be posted of Axiom in action! In the meantime, check out the "teaser" pic below.

Next week: An exciting announcement involving the team's pre-race agenda! Talk to you then!

Joseph Fernando
Race Engineering Manager

Blogging Time

2010-04-15T02:29:00.004-05:00

Hi Everyone,

Now that the race is rapidly approaching (about 60 days away) the blog will be receiving weekly updates from the three major engineering teams, Mechanical, Race, and Electrical.

First off Id like to comment on how much dedication and perseverance this team has shown putting this car together over the past year and a half (has it really been that long? whoa...) and just recently we have got the car (Axiom) in running condition.

We took Axiom out into lot #10 for preliminary testing just last weekend and with only a few minor electrical problems the drivers of Axiom logged in several hours each driving the car. I'm sure the race team and Mechanical team can fill in everyone of the other details of this event but I will be focusing on the electrical side of things...

It turns out that one of the minor electrical issues we we're having had to do with the BPS (Battery Protection System). The BPS was shutting down the car when under hard acceleration or quick toggling of the controls. It turns out that electrical noise was interfering with some of the sensitive measurement electronics on board (battery current, battery voltages, and battery temperature) which then caused the BPS to shut down the car.

The electrical team has since fixed this bug and the BPS will be ready to go again shortly!

See you next week!

Tim Gamber
Electrical Engineering Manager

March Update

2010-03-24T20:58:00.003-05:00

Pardon the delayed update, as mentioned from before, things are quickly getting busier as we get closer to race time.

Just a few things, the team participated at the Auto Show and it turned out to be a great success, wonderful attendance by the public and it was great to see the interest in Axiom. As usual, community outreach is a priority, and this week a few members of the team attended Lord Beaverbrook High School Energy Expo. Our members really enjoyed the expo and would like to thank staff and students at Lord Beaverbrook High for their hospitality and organization.

In the meanwhile, drivers are training hard, the race logistics team is working out race details and route intricacies, engineering team is finish up the car, and the sponsorship team is raising funds.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Solar Team Meets with the Minister of Environment

2010-02-07T19:34:00.004-06:00

It's been another busy week as the team prepares for the race and finishes building the Axiom. But in midst of the regular work schedules, we had the pleasure of meeting with Honourable Rob Renner, the AB Minister of Environment and the MLA for Medicine Hat. It was a great opportunity to introduce the third generation project team and the Schulich Axiom to the Minister and share some of our ideas about the importance of sustainable energy research projects and community education about alternative power options. We'd like to thank Mr. Renner for his time and contributions to the community as the Minister of Environment.

Happy Holidays!!

2009-12-22T22:32:00.006-06:00

The solar team wishes to express our sincere gratitude to our supporters: sponsors, University of Calgary, advisers, our colleagues, alumni, mentors, Calgary and many others who made year 2009 memorable and gave us the opportunity to share our passion with you.

In retrospect, this year brought immeasurable value in growth, development and learning. New summits were reached, higher goals were set, and strategies have been put in place. We want to thank everyone who helped us along our journey towards achieving success, and thank you for believing in our passion and dedication to earn the top spot in the upcoming races. Thank You!

From everyone on the UC Solar Team
....Happy Holidays!

Semester End Update

2009-12-08T18:57:00.003-06:00

At last, the last day of classes of the Fall'09 semester is almost over! With that comes an awkward mixture of relief, excitement and a realization that this also marks the beginning of finals.

All students within the team have been advised to focus only on the exams for the duration of this period, so to aid in that the team will temporarily reduce its operational activity until December 21, 2009.

If you wish to contact the team with an urgent matter please indicate that in the subject/heading of any correspondence.

Please note that, there will be one more final blog update of the year after December 21st so please visit us again before the new year.

For those writing the exams, BEST OF LUCK!

The new SCHULICH AXIOM Unveiled!

2009-11-24T23:06:00.005-06:00

After over 9 months in design, months of planning and anticipation, the University of Calgary Solar Team unveiled its third generation solar powered car, the SCHULICH AXIOM!

November 23, 2009 marked the writing of an important chapter in the team’s history. The SCHULICH AXIOM is faster, lighter, and more energy efficient! But beyond masterful engineering, this car entails and captures the values of this team. Teamwork, application of past experiences and concepts learned in class, excellence carried through each generation, dedication to deliver results, and gratitude for the generous support of families, friends, mentors, advisors, and sponsors who made this possible. And as before, the team strongly believes in importance of education and is committed to maintaining an interdisciplinary mandate of the team.

The name, just like the final design, was carefully chosen based on multiple qualities and meanings. The word “AXIOM” could be defined as a self evident and necessary truth: a mathematical law that is used to solve bigger problems. Problems like the need for energy efficient power alternatives, clean and recyclable energy sources, and often lack of public understanding of these solutions. With every car, the team is making progress in making the design and efficiency more appropriate for potential practical use in near future. With a more comfortable seating, less restrictions of height and weight, the research done by the team and similar teams is already being implemented in modern day vehicles.

Analogous to the first computers, we believe that current research and application of experience allows us to build the foundation towards a brighter, cleaner, and healthier future for our community and the world at large.

Please follow the link and check the Globe and Mail (November 24, 2009) page A7 to read our story. And keep visiting us at www.calgarysolarteam.ca for more updates as we quickly approach race time!

Thanks to everyone who made this event possible, and helped us get this far!

WSC changes its name!

2009-11-14T23:11:00.003-06:00

It began as one man's adventure across Australia in a homemade solarcar more than a quarter of a century ago. Now, in 2009, that single intrepid and pioneering experiment has evolved into the world's leading solar vehicle expedition across a landscape that is as remarkable as the vehicles that traverse it.

It was announced that the World Solar Challenge is changing its name to Global Green Challenge to include "latest advances in hybrid, electric, solar, low emission, and alternative energy vehicles."

The Solar Team took part in WSC'05 with Soleon, and in WSC'07 with Schulich I to come in first out of Canadian teams. Check out the photos of the WSC race in the gallery accessible from the home page.

To read more about the race click here for great content about the route, contestants, and much more.

Event planning and much more

2009-10-29T15:55:00.001-05:00

Amidst the midterms and the assignments, the team’s current mission is to complete the preparation for the largest unveiling ceremony we’ve ever organized. With the days starting at 8 am with anything from event logistics meetings, media training, banner preparation, invitations and much more, the excitement within the team is rising!

On another note, we want to welcome the new Solar Team members joining us this fall. This year’s recruitment round was a huge success and we look forward to working with more students coming from faculties of communication, business, education, engineering, and sciences.

Watch out for more updates about the unveiling ceremony and the preparations for it!

Update!

2009-06-27T23:13:00.001-05:00

Hello UC Solar Team Followers

First things first. Sorry for not updating our blog in such a long time, rest assured however the team has been working extremely hard on developing our newest car. The mechanical team has been running on all cylinders, and here is just a quick snapshot of what they have been up to. The plug (male mold of the car) has been produced! This is a huge step forward as it allows to start producing the mold for the aeroshell. The chassis team has been doing design work and producing mock chassis, as well as doing material testing in preparation for developing the prototype frame. Suspension is being designed and built.

Our Electrical team has been motoring along quiet well also, and here is a bit of the work they have been doing. The solar cells have arrived! We are preparing to do testing on all of the cells to determine which ones to use on the car, and are working on developing methods to put them together into panels. We are implementing and testing improvements to our battery management systems. We have been testing different motor controllers, and will soon be testing different motors. The goal is to determine which motor and controller is most efficient for us under different conditions. Our instrumentation team has also been hard at working improving car communications.

Everything is slowly coming together and we are looking to have a prototype completed in September for testing.

We would also like to give thanks to all those people who came out to see our team and car at the following events.

May 31 - Lilac Festival - we showcased our car, and the lilac festival had an attendance of over 100,000
June 3 - Showcased car at Mayor's Environment Expo
June 5 - Sneak a Peek to Campus Fair (showcased car to school groups)
June 6 - Campus Fair

Stay tuned for more updates, as the team is hitting our summer build phase.

Keeping Up To Date

2009-02-12T14:52:00.002-06:00

To keep everyone up to date with the solar team's progress, here is some information as to what we have been doing over the past while. At the end of last year, we researched materials, designs, and cells that could be used on the car to make it more aerodynamic and efficient.

Recently the mechanical team has tested various small models of some early designs in a wind tunnel for drag resistance and lift. They are now taking some of the better designs and programming them into software to perform further tests and analysis. They are continually researching how to make the car better. They are also close to deciding what material we will be using for the chassis (chromoly, steel, or carbon fibre).

The electrical team has spent a lot of time trying to find solar cells to purchase, and weighing the pros and cons of the different types of cells. We are very close to making a decision on this. The electrical team is currently organizing various projects to help familiarize the team with the components of the electrical system.

The engineering team recently had a design review in which the team presented their ideas to other team members, members of the University, and members of industry who agreed to attend. The purpose of the review is to get different viewpoints on the ideas, and make sure that everything is moving on the right track.

The business team has been organizing different events, such as the Louis Riel visit last month. Looking forward, we will be visiting Colonel Macleod Junior High School next week and will be attending the Auto Show in March. We are currently beginning to actively look for sponsors for the gen 3 vehicle. A successful recruitment drive has added six new members to the business team to help with events, community relations, accounting, and logistics.

In all, we have been fairly busy and will keep on working hard keep the project rolling.

Calgary Solar Team On YouTube

2009-02-04T16:46:00.004-06:00

Come see our YouTube videos regarding our prior events...

Louis Riel School Visit

2009-01-25T23:10:00.012-06:00

Kicking off the 2009 year, the solar team welcomed the grade 3 and 4 classes of Louis Riel School. What better way to learn about solar cars than a Friday morning here at the University of Calgary. Mariam and Matthew lead the event with a presentation about the technologies and construction of Soleon and Schulich 1, our first two cars. Schulich 1 was supposed to make an appearance around the Science Theaters, but because of heavy snow, it couldn't be moved out of the shop. I guess we didn't budget enough for snow tires this year. Maybe next year.

After the presentation, the kids hiked way into the north-west campus to visit the shop where the solar team was keeping Schulich 1. This was where Ravi explained the design and components of Schulich 1 and took questions for the kids. In all, we believe the kids had a fun time, learnt a little, and we may have some future solar car drivers on our hands!

The Final Results

2008-07-23T15:53:00.001-05:00

Crossing the finish lines was amazing and a huge relief for me! We were home safe and sound without so much as a scrape (although with a few bug bites) or an emotional meltdown by any of our team members.

Grady was on the phone constantly as we drove from Medicine Hat to Calgary. When we called Angela Knight (the CBC traffic reporter) she starting updating the city every half hour of our route. As we drove the TCH people were camped out at every farm crossing and road. We were well out in front of all of the teams (novel experience for us in the Chuckwagon as we passed Michigan in Brooks - they were only doing 110!!)

And everyone honked at us as well. Our route to the school was the most direct so we missed the crowds but, from the city limits on, the streets were lined with families and well-wishers. Calgary gave these students a hero's welcome. Grady and I dumped our S10 and carried the flags and media kits to the finish to hugs and greetings from so many people. President Harvey Weingartner and Dean Elizabeth Cannon were so excited to see us and were full of questions. As the checkered flag holders they were ready to bring everyone home in style. The University really put on a show with a huge enviro fair and pit area for the teams. Kids, families and onlookers were amazed to see the cars up close and many autographs were given. Now all of us feel like rockstars!

True to my promise I was there to wave in Durham who trailered to the finish at 4:30 and then drove across the ceremonial line to my waving flags. They came home with me for newcastle Brown Ale (first beer in a loonng time) and barbecue. Without funds nor hotel room, they camped out all over our house and the car on the driveway was a big hit with Ben and Henry across the road!

Pancakes for breakfast and then the awards ceremony at the Zoo and it's all over! I finally got some sleep last night - 16 hours into the sleep bank - today I'll clean out the S10. You gotta feel for Grady - he went from the finish line to the airport for a 27 hour flight to papua new guinea where he will follow a Light up the World project. He must be quite discombobulated!

Thanks again for your cheers and support. We will all take the week off to reconnect with kith and kin and then do a big debrief of the car and race before we even begin to think of our generation 3 car. Of course, that's assuming there is a generation 3!!

Into The Home Stretch

2008-07-21T15:59:00.002-05:00

Medicine Hat, Alberta — The final leg of the 2008 North American Solar Challenge (NASC) begins this morning at 9 am at Medicine Hat’s Family Leisure Centre as 15 cars will charge their batteries in
Raycing across Alberta: Schulich 1 heads for home today.
the early morning light before heading to the finish line for the 4,000-kilometre race in front of the Olympic Oval on the U of C campus. The U of C’s Schulich 1 vehicle will be the sixth vehicle off the starting line as driver Tiffany Veltman brings the vehicle home from the epic cross-continent rally.
“This race has been a great experience but I am also really looking forward to getting back home,” Veltman said. “The finish line is something we’re all excited about because we know there are so many people following us and supporting us.”

The U of C is 10 hours behind the top-5 NASC leaders in the overall standings for the race but has managed widen the gap between its rivals from the Missouri Univeristy of Science and Technology to two hours. Schulich 1 was given four hours of time penalties for trailering the car into Winnipeg and from Winnipeg to Brandon over the weekend. Many teams also received penalties for trailering after cloudy skies made it impossible to charge batteries sufficiently. The top five teams include the University of Michigan, Principia College, FH Bokum, Waterloo University and the University of Minnesota.

Monday saw brilliant sunshine fuel up vehicles as they continued Stage 3 of the race across Saskatchewan. The U of C team pulled out of the checkstop in Regina at 8:45 am and drove its fastest day yet as Schulich 1 hits speeds of up to 100 km/h. The car crossed the border into Alberta shortly before 5 pm and the team was able to charge the car’s batteries in the evening and will continue charging this morning before heading west for Calgary.

“Our goal was to break even and hold our batteries to 70 per cent of their capacity by charging while we were driving, and we pretty much managed to do that,” the team’s electrical engineering manager Leo Marrero said. “We’ll charge up as much as we can this morning and as long as the clouds don’t move in too fast, we’ll be in good shape to get into Calgary this afternoon.”

The solar cars will head west on the Trans-Canada Highway and the leading teams are scheduled to arrive in Calgary at approximately 12:30 pm. The race route through the city will see the cars and their escort vehicles travel west along 16 Avenue to 52 Street NE where they will head north to McKnight Blvd. The cars will then follow McKnight Blvd. west to John Laurie Blvd before turning south onto Charleswood Drive and then follow 32 Avenue NW to the U of C at Collegiate Blvd.

Wild Rose Country: FH Bokum's car enters Alberta on Monday.
The U of C’s finish line celebration will take place from 10 am to 4 pm and includes a barbecue and environmental expo and a chance for the public to see the solar cars on display and meet solar car team members. It is the second consecutive time the U of C has hosted the NASC finish line after the race left the United States for the first time in 2005.

“The folks in Calgary have really impressed us with their hospitality and creating a real party-like atmosphere for the finish,” race director Dan Eberle said. “We are really glad to be coming back to Calgary for this year’s event.”

Schulich 1 Finishes Sixth In NASC

2008-07-21T15:58:00.001-05:00

Calgary, Alberta — Fifteen solar powered vehicles cruised to the conclusion of the 2008 North American Solar Challenge fuelled by sunshine and Calgary spirit as thousands of spectators lined the streets and gathered at the finish line at the University of Calgary today to greet cars including the U of C’s own Schulich 1.

“We are just overwhelmed by the number of people who came out to cheer for us and welcome us back home,” U of C Solar Team operations manager Darshni Pillay said. “This entire race has been a truly amazing experience for the entire team and we’d like to thank everyone who has supported us and followed us along this adventure.”

The 15 solar cars that left Plano, Texas on July 13 pulled out of the Family Leisure Centre in Medicine Hat at 9 am Tuesday morning on the final stage of the 4,000 kilometre race. All of the teams pushed their vehicles as close to highway speed as possible since there was no need to conserve power for another day of racing tomorrow. The first-place vehicle, University of Michigan’s Continuum, crossed the finish line at 1:19 pm followed by Waterloo University at 1:47, Germany’s FH Bochum car at 2:06, the University of Minnesota at 2:15, Principia College at 2:20, Queen’s University at 2:28. The U of C’s Schulich 1 was the seventh car to cross the finish line with all team members jogging alongside the car at 2:33 pm to a roar of applause from an estimated 10,000 people who gathered at the finish line celebration. Official standings from the race will be available on the North American Solar Challenge website at: www.americansolarchallenge.org

“It was so exciting to be able to drive the car back home today,” said driver Tiffany Veltman. “There were crowds of people cheering and waving the whole way and I just kept wanting to drive the car faster and faster!”

After celebrations for all teams tonight and a NASC wrap-up dinner at the Calgary Zoo on Wednesday evening, the U of C Solar Team plans to take a well-deserved rest before gearing to start designing and building its third car in September.

“We are bringing home so many lessons from this year’s race that will help us immensely as we move forward into the third generation of our car,” Pillay said. “The next North American Solar Challenge is only two years away so we have a lot of work ahead of us as our team continues to improve and become more competitive.”

Hometown Hero

2008-07-20T21:30:00.000-05:00

We're in Medicine Hat after a hometown hero's welcome for Jeff. His entire family was there with a fabulous barbecue for all. It was so nice to have a cheering crowd instead of me and my flags all alone by the roadside.

As the team crossed the 4th meridian and into Alberta, we all camped out with cameras and flags to
Back in the Hat: Driver Jeff Wickenheiser gets a big hug from his mom Rita at the finish line in Medicine Hat
welcome them home. It is an interesting thing to stand by the side of the Trans-Canada Highway with two large flags (Canada and Alberta) a lot of people honk their horns which makes you proud! One fellow slowed down and yelled 'mighty patriotic of you' and then sped away. Eventually, Schulich 1 appeared and everyone was waving at the flags....I think they secretly like my over the top cheerleading.

Grady and I arrived about 30 minutes before the car and it was quite a celebration. While the barbecue was being prepared, I ran to Co-op to pick up a gift for our hosts (Icewine seemed so appropriate as it's boiling here) and while I waited at a stoplight a young lady in the car next to me yelled ' Are you with the cars?' To which I replied, yes. She then said 'is that Jeff Wickenheiser?' 'Yes', I said. 'Like wow, I used to dirt bike with him'. It's official, Jeff is a rockstar!

You may or may not know, but the team signed a contract that this is a dry trip. After the many long hot days, I've often rethought that strategy as a cold beer (or gin & tonic) would have been great, so tonight I had a lot of fun delivering to the barbecue O'douls' non-alcoholic beer. The reaction was priceless and everyone agreed it was the best beer ever! On to Calgary tomorrow and we are all trying to hold it together with excitement. Thanks for all your support over the last three weeks, it has been quite a trip and an amazing journey. Finish line tomorrow and an expected 10,000 people there to greet us.

Clock Ticking For Calgary

2008-07-20T16:08:00.000-05:00

Regina, Saskatchewan — The race to reach Calgary in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge (NASC) is heating up after rain hampered the start of Stage 4 from Winnipeg on Sunday and forced many teams to carefully plot their plans of attack for making it to the finish line on Tuesday.

“I am really pleased with our progress. Our strategy worked like clockwork and we are really well placed for the drive into Medicine Hat,” said Darshni Pillay, the U of C Solar Team’s operations manager. “We’ve had to take some penalties but I think they will pay off because it has put us in a good position going into the last two days and we haven’t had to trailer our car as much as much as some of our competitors.”
Half the cars were missing from the starting line in Winnipeg as teams including the U of C chose to
Across the prairies: Schulich 1 passes the colourful canola fields lining the Trans-Canada Highway
trailer their cars out of the city since the early morning skies were filled with rain clouds and charging up depleted batteries wasn’t an option. The U of C team trailered Schulich 1 to the first checkpoint 200 kilometres west in Brandon, where the car was unloaded and spent one hour charging thanks to clearer skies. From there, driver Tiffany Veltman maintained a pace of about 80 km/h that enabled the car to make it to the next checkpoint in Regina just 15 minutes before the end of the racing day. Schulich 1 was the only vehicle other than the first-place car from University of Michigan to reach the Regina checkpoint on Sunday.

“This puts us in a good position to start Monday because the skies are clear and we will roll out from the checkpoint and won’t have to stop again until Medicine Hat, except to change drivers,” Pillay said.

This evening’s arrival in Medicine Hat will be a homecoming for Schulich 1 driver Jeff Wickenheiser, who was raised in the Gas City and plans to take the car across the finish line for Stage 4, followed by a team dinner hosted by his grandparents.

“It has been great to see how many people are behind us and excited about the race since we returned to Canada, and it is exciting to think that some of my family will be at the finish line today,” Wickenheiser said.

The rest of the photos

2007-11-09T01:21:00.000-06:00

Ok! I know it's been a couple of weeks but I've finally had the time and the internet access to get the rest of the photos up. That means all the race day photos and the finish line. Look for them at www.calgarysolarteam.ca/plogger. Enjoy!

Pre-race photos up

2007-10-28T18:29:00.001-05:00

All the pre-race photos are now up. The race photos and finish line photos will be up later. Media center is closing down right now. Thanks everyone for your interest.

Photo Gallery

2007-10-26T21:33:00.001-05:00

Photo Gallery is here. I am updating as we speak so please be patient. Click here to view.

Photos upto and including the Rebuild are up. The rest should be up between 8am and 10am local on Monday. That is about 2pm Sunday afternoon Calgary time.

Officially Finished

2007-10-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

We officially crossed the finish line here in Adelaide this morning at around 10:40AM. After a relaxing meal at a Vietnamese restaurant, and a comforting sleep in a hotel bed, we went back to the official timing line and drove our car in. Offically we came in 8th in our class and 12th overall. Total racing time was 49 hours and 46 minutes.

Considering what we went through - we did pretty good. We found several issues with our aeroshell during the race that was chewing up a lot of our energy. I know at one point we had a giant airscoop on the tail, sucking back around 200 watts. When your car only uses 1500 watts to do 70km hour, that's very significant. I'd like to think had we raced the car as she was built, we would have saved a few hours.

A few of you had asked how this compares to last year. I just pulled up the results, and last year we finished in 47 hours and 15 minutes with an average speed of 63.46 km/hour (11th place overall). So we may have not done quite as well as last year, but in fact, the entire race was a little bit slower.

Last years top three finishers: Nuna III (29:11), Aurora (32:35), Momentum (33:18)

This year's top three finishers: Nuna 4 (33:17), Umicar Infinity (34:36), Aurora101 (35:17)

So you can see things are a bit slower this year. One reason I believe is the weather. Anecdotal notes form last year suggest there were no cloudy days like we saw this year. Had we not putted along at 30km/hour for part of tuesday (along with many other teams) we might have been substantially faster. But this was part of the organizers plans. In addition to changing the rules of design, they moved the race ahead a month to get more inclement weather. I guess it worked.

I could go on and on as to how we could have been better, but why just talk about it when we can put it into next year's strategy. Schulich I will be back to race in the North American Solar Challenge with a few modifications, and I know there are already ideas floating around about Schulich II. One of the amazing parts of being here is seeing all the other cars. There are around 50 cars here and more than 500 young and intelligent people. Talking with them has already presented ideas and opportunities for our next generation car.

Finished at last

2007-10-26T07:41:00.000-05:00

Wow, it all comes down to this. Almost two years of working on a project that turns out to be quite massive and it seems over instantly. But we did it. We pulled into Adelaide across the timing finish line around 4:15 today. We were the top Canadian team, with U of T pulling in maybe 30 minutes later. That puts us in I believe 12th place. We had an Australian team nipping at our heals on the last day and they passed us earlier in the day. There are no official results yet.

Now because we pulled in across the timing finish line so late in the day - we don't actually get to cross the real finish line until tomorrow morning. So we trailered our car and went to the hotel with it. Tomorrow morning we bring the car back to the outskirts of the city and drive it in. We get to drive down the tram tracks into the City centre and cross the ceremonial finish line - hopefully to a lot of fanfare.

I apologize that this is so short but there will be more tomorrow. I have been incredibly sick all day and unable to do much or make updates at our stops. I hope to post pictures in the next 8-10 hours.

NEWS FLASH

2007-10-25T08:11:00.000-05:00

What a great day today. We traveled over 600km, which puts our average speed around 75km/hour. We’re still in 11th place with Aviva just in front. Tomorrow is looking good. We have 560 km to go. If we can keep up 75 km/h we will be there by 4pm. Forecast is favourable, but we’ll see more cloud cover as we approach the coast.

We have the U of T team not far behind us – I think only 40km. We really want to be the top placed Canadian team out of the six of us, so we’ll have to be quick and efficient tomorrow. Not much word on the rest of the Canadians but we did hear the first place team – Nuna – finished tonight. And our good friends at Stanford rolled their car today. All are ok, but they are trailering for a bit. Team is pretty shaken up after watching it.

It’s late and I need sleep. Tomorrow is a critical day. We need to make it – Saturday’s forecast has a low pressre and cold front moving in – bound to make a terrible finish day for a lot of teams.

MAP UPDATED

Cadney Control Stop

2007-10-24T21:05:00.000-05:00

Car just left Cadney Homestead at 11:11am. We were ahead of Aviva Aurora, but a battery issue pullover had them pass us only a few kilometers before Cadney. Been sustaining good speeds and theres a chance we might hit Adelaide Friday evening. We are currently in 11th place overall and I believe 8th in our class. Bright sunny skies are ahead.

NOTE Map Updated.

Day 5 begins

2007-10-24T16:59:00.000-05:00

It's hard to believe we're at day 5 already. We passed into South Australia from the Northern Territory late yesterday.and are now offically at kilometer 1825.5 km on the course. That leaves about 1175km to go. At 34 hours of driving time, our current average speed is 54km/h. Not the greatest, but we're up near the lead. I'm still impressed, especially considering we ripped off our tail and boot-strapped another. Some teams may have walked away.

But fear not everyone - things are looking good this morning. The batteries are charging really nicely. We should be able to head towards our next checkpoint - Cadney Homestead at close to 80km/hour. The Array should give us a good 6 amp hours at our half hour stop in Cadney. Just looked over and we're taking down half the array. It's only 7:20 and the car is actually charging too fast. We'll be leaving our spot this morning with a full battery! Look for another update in 3-4 hours.

Full moon night

2007-10-24T09:15:00.001-05:00

It’s been another long day. But I didn’t expect much else. We rose to sunrise coming than expected and did all our work this morning. This made for a busy morning. Car had to be shuttled to a tree free area for charging, while the camp had to be taken down and breakfast served.

We were still having issues with the battery and BPS – Ryan and Shawn found a potential problem area - kill switch. That’s part of the new rules this year – you need an external kill switch for the car that isolates the batteries, This switch had a lose wire which may have been a problem. It has been secured and we’ll see performance tomorrow.

We had another flat tire in the rear today – with some slightly similar steering effects to when we had the crash on the track. This time though the tire went flat slowly – not instantly. In this instance, the motor was in constant torque mode where as with the crash it was in constant speed. Constant speed is more efficient but can lock up the motor like when we had the rear blowout. Constant torge is safer, so we opted to go that way.

The weather was much more pleasant today. Sunny all day with no clouds – but also a little cooler. We peaked at about 1600 watts. I’ve posted this power graph to show you what we generate. The middle curve is during our driving time with the outside lines being our charge time. That’s when the array is off the car and perpendicular to the sun.

I’ve also uploaded something from our Geo team. They plotted our speed and location as we were on the test track at hidden valley. Small green dots are slower, large red oes are faster.

Into Alice and beyond

2007-10-23T21:55:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. We pulled into a place called Aileron last night right at 5pm. Charged up for a bit (but not a lot because of clouds) and camped out for the night. Met a bunch of friendly locals who ran the campground/gas station and got to bed early because we didn't have to make dinner or clean up.

We did our tire changes this morning which was a little more hectic. Not to mention there was a motor change that happened too. Unfortunatly, that motor didn't behave properly and we put the old one back in only a couple hundred meters down the road. Guess we learned from that one.

Pulled into Alice here today at 11:09. We departed 30 minutes later in 7th place. Now you may ask how we moved back up? Because our class (challenge) has only 6 square meters of solar panels versus the adventure class, they were handicapped and delayed until at least 12:00 today. Some teams wont be leaving here until after 2:30pm. So for us to keep our position we will have to do very well.

No updates on the battery front - but perhaps we can shed some light on those later tonight with a blog post. You can check the map for our new location. The convoy is too far ahead right now but I believe we are doing 65km/hour. Skies are clear, bright blue and it should hold until tomorrow. Friday morning we see a low pressure system moving in with cloud towards Adelaide, so we're planning a straegy that will get us into Adelaide early afternoon Friday with enough power to get through the clouds.

Once again, thanks for reading, please keep up the comments and pass our blog onto others who are interested.

How about another Update?

2007-10-23T00:49:00.000-05:00

BJ here - We made it through the main band of cloud and popped out into the sun around the settlement of Ti-Tree. Schulich I has been charging the pack and is making towards Alice Springs at 35 kph. There was a bit of rain not unlike some Vancouver drizzle for a little bit, but we were rewarded with the sun on the other side! The support vehicles are going to stock up on a few supplies here in Ti-Tree in case we need to spend the night camping again.

More updates to follow, Thanks to everyone showing their intrest!

Update

2007-10-22T23:06:00.000-05:00

Current position on map is updated and speed is 30 km/h while array is producing 100 watts. We have just passed the car Salsio on the side of the road.

As for questions about the uplink - it is a BGAN terminal with decent speeds. We just need to be stationary before pointing and updating. Not hard to stop when your car is doing 30km/h :)

Cloud cover appears to be thinning in some places.

Back on the Road

2007-10-22T21:31:00.000-05:00

And we're off - battery has enough power to proceed, heading to Alice now.

Battery Issues

2007-10-22T20:47:00.000-05:00

We are currently stopped at Barrow Creek Gas Station. We are about 280 km out of Alice Springs. Cloud cover is heavy and we were drawing only 100 watts of power from our array. Full sun is usually around 1600 watts.

There also appears to be battery issues. Ryan and Shawn are investigating. We pulled in here with an exmpty pack, althogh we weren't expecting it to be empty.

We have seen several teams pass us at this time. Stanford and Christine have both passed

NOTE: MAP UPDATED

Cloud Cover

2007-10-22T17:34:00.001-05:00

Well - we might be a little slow heading into Alice today. If you look at satellite weather, there is a large band of clouds across the etire continent. We'll let you know when we hit Alice which is our next checkpoint. CAtherine is close on our tails, only a few minutes behind.

This photo is from our Safety meeting this morning and you can see the heavy cloud cover.

Windstorm

2007-10-22T09:42:00.000-05:00

It’s 12:00 now and we’ve just recovered from a windstorm. The team was all asleep while Cassidy and I were off taking photos of a brush fire down the road. We returned to find everyone awake and running about like ants. A front had blown through and we had to secure down the car and camp. We’ve moved a couple of our support vehicles to block the wind hitting Schulich I. Tape has been applied to a couple of her seams for extra protection and to keep any moisture out (although we don’t expect rain). We pulled up the weather maps and it doesn’t look too threatening.

Now, the car is safe and that’s great – but the rest of camp is not. Our tents needed extra protection and all of our gear had to be secured. We were able to move one tent into protection behind the campervan – but the other tent has no place to go. As a result – Jason, Josh and Cassidy are all sleeping inside a tent that is not put up. The wind is too fierce.

However, on a brighter note, we are more inland and so the temperature cools more at night. It’s close to 40 degrees in the daytime here, but we’re seeing temperatures easily fall to 25 with this wind. Cloud cover has filled in the entire sky – let’s hope it’s gone tomorrow.

Camp is quiet now – everyone is asleep. Now it’s my turn to find shelter from the storm.

Moving on up in the world

2007-10-22T03:19:00.000-05:00

We rolled into our campsite for the night at 5:01pm today. We’ve found a spot on the side of the road, about 70km south of Tenent Creek, and 400 north of Alice Springs. Today was another successful day. No major problems with the car – just the usual quarks and oddities.

Our neighbours tonight are one of the Aurora cars – Catherine. We passed her this afternoon and only gained on her marginally. We get to leave a few minutes before them in the morning, and we hope to increase our lead as the day goes on. Our goal is to reach Alice Spring with a dead battery pack, as it is a major control point, and we will not leave until Wednesday morning. This allows us to charge our pack from the moment we arrive. Our plan tomorrow is to arrive around 2pm on a perfect day, and 3pm if it’s cloudy. This should be enough time to build up a full battery pack for Wednesday.

I’m out – camp needs to be set-up before dark and my duties beckon.

Dummara checkpoint

2007-10-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

We left camp this morning at 8am with a target speed of 65km/h. As we progressed, we bumped it upto 70 and into the checkpoint at Dunmarra. All is looking good. Schulich I arrived here at 9:34, departed at 10:04. We are currently in 11th place overall and 7th in the challenge class.

Day One is complete

2007-10-21T08:46:00.000-05:00

It’s now about 11pm and the rest of the team has gone to bed. We pulled in around 5:15 to our camp on the side of the road. We’ve traveled 631 kilometers today, which is better than we faired two years ago. Hopefully with our array fully connected, we’ll cover a lot more ground tomorrow. Strategically, we’re doing alright. We should hit the Dunmarra checkpoint early in the morning and put the array up for some good charging.

We had an interesting dilemma today – to stop and try to diagnose and fix the array, or to wait until a scheduled stop. The issue was not knowing how long it would take to diagnose, and we weren’t really losing that much power. If we were to stop and try and diagnose it, we could actually lose more kilometers overall depending on the time taken. So we decided to wait. Turns out It was an easy fix. We probably could have gone an extra 30 km today if we’d fixed it right after the start line when we noticed the problem. However we are still happy with our decision as it was the safe way to go.

Stanford pulled up beside us tonight wth their car on trailer. The place they stopped to fix their car wasn’t very safe and they needed to make camp for the night. This means they need to go back to their location for 8am tomorrow to start. However, this is only if they have fixed their array. They are currently working feverishly beside me to fix it. They are drawing about half the power they should, but cannot diagnose a problem.

As it stands tonight, we are 7th in our class, and 11th overall. This does not include any handicapping for the class differences – so it’s tough to judge. Our goal tomorrow is to gain a position or two.

Aurora

2007-10-21T02:04:00.000-05:00

Aurora – the competitive Australian team has just passed us with their new car. They were experiencing problems earlier, but they are now back upto speed. Clouds have been getting worse and there is now no direct sunlight.

Checkpoint reflection

2007-10-21T00:33:00.000-05:00

Well I think the checkpoint in Katherine was fairly smooth. The way the regulations work is you cannot do any modifications to your car while at a checkpoint. You must stay for 30 minutes. So what we did is move the car out of the checkstop and make the quick fix (in addition to a tire change) and then left.

I haven’t mentioned the weather yet – but it’s been very sunny. However, the cloud cover has been building all day and is now filling in.

Katherine Checkpoint

2007-10-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

Just pulled into the Katherine checkpoint. The team has averaged 65.22 km/h from Darwin to Katherine – a total distance of 315 km. We are doing incredibly well, currently in 10th place. And we’re going to do better. We found that half of our front array wasn’t connected – wire problem. So at the end of our half hour checkpoint stop, we fixed the wiring and the car is on it’s way. What would it be without another problem?

On another note – word on Michigan is that they rear-ended their own lead vehicle. That really sucks. Apparently they’ve gone back to the race track to fix their car. We’ll keep you updated.

Caught Up

2007-10-20T23:21:00.001-05:00

We have caught up with Schulich I. We can see them about 200 meters ahead. Distance to Katherine is about 20 kilometers.

Old Proven Technology

2007-10-20T21:53:00.000-05:00

Earlier in the race we passed Aurora, a competitive Australian team. Interestingly, their new state of the art car was beind repaired on the side of the road. Right now we are tailing the original Australian Solar Car which was pulled out of a museum to race. Interesting how the old technology always proves more reliable.

Contact

2007-10-20T21:45:00.000-05:00

we’ve made contact with the main convoy. They are a few kilometers ahead and doing well. The Germans are rapidly approaching from behind with their car.

Top Canadian Team

2007-10-20T20:46:00.001-05:00

I’ve been about half an hour behind Schulich I in one of our support vehicles and we’ve seen a lot of solar cars on the side of the road. The American favourite Michigan was pulled off making repairs less than 3km into the race. We just drove past Blue Sky from UofT who was on the side of the road, a mere 257 km en route. The means Schulich I is now the first place Canadian team!

A Brilliant Start

2007-10-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

After qualifying 14th overall on the track yesterday, we pulled off to an incredible start this morning. After a frightening lack of power to the car only minutes before start, we’ve crossed the start line and are on our way. As luck would have it (for us), last year’s winner, Nuna, couldn’t leave the start line on time – possibly due to motor controller issues.

Top 10 Start position

2007-10-19T21:16:00.001-05:00

With great success, Schulich I has just completed our qualifier at the track today with a lap time of 2:35. The team is incrediby excited and can't wait to race the car down the highway. We are the top Canadian team in our class, and in the top 10 for the start. Our car is now officially registered to drive in the Northern Territory and we have this commemorative licence plate.

Success!

2007-10-19T10:25:00.000-05:00

Well, we've done it again. What seemed like an insurmountable task yesterday now looks like a piece of cake. We passed our scruitineering test with flying colours. There were tests and checks against our brakes, lights, safety systems, and driver entry and exit among others. I still can't believe we pulled it all together. All that is left now is to do our braking test and car stability test tomorrow and we will be issued our official Australian license plate.

As for the progress of the car - we are getting the tail section rebuilt slowly but surely. It's not going to be as pretty as the original tail, but it should work none the less. After our testing tomorrow we will have some results of the stability and integrity of the new tail section. We can then go ahead and attach the remaining solar panels and bring the array back up to about 6 square meters. That crash saw a loss of about 12.5% of our array - a critical amount.

Crash cleanup

2007-10-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

Here's a video of our crash cleanup on the track. Looks a lot worse than it was.

Catastrophe

2007-10-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

In a previous post I talked about challenges – and how this really is a test of our ability to solve all sorts of problems. Well, today we were really put to the test. Around 10:30 this morning, (a mere 6 hours before our scrutineering test) Schulich I blew out the rear tire and an unfortunate series of events followed. Fortunately, the sound engineering and construction of our car kept our driver injury free. Let me describe it to you.

The car was traveling around 75 km/h down the main stretch of the track when the rear tire blew. It proceeded to come off of the rim, leaving the car driving on an aluminum rim and two front tires. At this point, the car fishtailed, and our driver did a good job keeping the car in the track. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to keep it in completely, and the tail section of the car swung around and hit the side guard-rail. Now at first, this doesn’t sound too bad. However, as luck would have it, the small half inch gap in the guard rail lined up perfectly with the tail of our car and got wedged in. Several things happened as a result.

Firstly the chassis separated from the aeroshell at some locations, and slid along mounting points at other locations. Secondly, the front half of the aeroshell lept off the car and onto the track skidding away. Lastly, the tail section of the car that was wedged in the guard rail stayed there while the car moved forward. This ultimately ripped the back of the car off and destroyed about 10% of our array.

Sounds bad doesn’t it? Well, this is a learning experience, and we’re adding this one to the list of accomplishments. Why you ask? Because the team pulled it together and handled this situation incredibly well. I am amazed by the progress and spirits of the team today, and the efforts of the last 12 hours. We followed all safety procedures and there were no problems in the clean up. We had the car back in the shop and disassembled completely within about 2 hours. After a complete check and overhaul, the car was reassembled and all problems were identified. Solutions were proposed, and the guys spent the last 6 hours working on implementing the solutions.

These guys are dedicated. They have spent the past two years leading up to this short 5 days race, and they aren’t about to let a little bad luck stop them. Despite our loss today, you’d think nothing had happened. The car as it stands now is fully race ready and can compete safely and according to rules and regulations. But the team wants more. We’re constructing a new tail for the car with the help of our trusted shop man Dan, who’s welding aluminum for us. We’ll be putting the spare panels on tomorrow. Come Friday afternoon – you’d never have known the car was in an accident.

Now the guys on the team have been incredible, but there’s been a lot more support out there. Every team out here on the track feels for us – and they’ve been incredibly helpful. We’ve gone in search of tools and materials and not one team has turned us down. So thank-you to all the other teams competing out here in Darwin.

I must finish up this entry as we’ll be at it again in mere hours. We’ve post-poned our scrutineering test, but we don’t have a firm answer on when it is, so the sooner the better. Thanks for reading, please check out the pictures as they come up.

Update coming

2007-10-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

There are several blog updates coming inbetween the previous and the next blog entry. Please stay tuned