| Panasonic World Solar Challenge |
[Oct. 22nd, 2007|01:40 am] |
The Panasonic World Solar Challenge started this past Saturday (EST-PST). Having placed 11th out of the 38 teams split among two classes of vehicles, in the speed track qualifiers, the University of Michigan Solar Car team was set to start at 8:10am. Just an hour into the race, the Stanford team passed U of M and then abrubtly stopped. This led to our lead vehicle being forced to halt suddenly, which caused our Solar Car: Continuum to crash into the back of the lead vehicle. Noone was harmed in the incident, and it's a testament to the quality of the design created and built by this student team. The front of the vehicle buckled in well defined ways, destroying the cells on the front upper surface and cracking our sheilding over our contentrator array. Also damaged were the wheel fairings: the shaped wheel wells that help produce the great aerodynamic advantage of the car. During the rest of the day the team worked to replace and repair all components that were damaged and then to run the vehicle through speed dynamic tests to verify that the vehicle was safe to drive. Having demonstrated this fact, the car was certified and left on the road again in the morning of Monday Australian time (Sunday EST-PST) The car progressed through the Katherine checkpoint making great time around noon. And moved on for the rest of the day, camping like most teams in the Outback where they stop when the race officials call time at the end of the day.
Note: the WSC official site fell under the onslaught of too many excited followers and is currently still trying to recover. |
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