Picture Update!

Although the results of the race are in and the team is back in the U.S., I'll start off with a few pictures from scrutineering and qualifying. Eleanor was scrutineered on Wednesday 10/21. Race officials verified the car's dimensions, weight, and array size. All drivers were weighed so we could be ballasted up to 80 kg. The entire caravan and all of our safety equipment was inspected. We demonstrated Eleanor's turn signals and brake lights and our battery pack was tied shut so that any tampering during the race would we obvious. Below some of our electrical team members, Alex, Robert and Kelly, discuss the car's electrical system with the scrutineers.













After completing scrutineering, we applied our nice 3M stickers to the trailer and then set out for a test drive.














We got in a few practice tire changes and experience on the left side of the road before running into an issue with the mechanical brakes and a problem with seizing lug nuts. Chris took this picture of the entire caravan while we were stopped.

















We were able to completely resolve the brake issue later that day, but the seizing lug nuts would come back to haunt us on day 2 of the race when a driver change turned into a tire change and then turned into a hub change. We finally worked out this issue that night and had no problems on subsequent tire changes.

Our awesome tire changing crew, lead by Alex Arambula (pictured awesomely below), performed awesomely during the race. The University of New South Wales team, Sunswift, took a video of a 3.5 minute rear wheel swap on day 4. We will try to get a copy of it and post it here for posterity.















Each day of the race we had at least one control stop. Control stops are 30 minute or 10 minute mandatory stops at various towns along the route. This allows the teams to switch drivers, fill up the support vehicles with gas, and go to the bathroom without worrying about other teams catching up while they do so. Control stops also allow you to get a little extra charge from the array. Since every watt-hour counts, we sometimes held the array tilted towards the sun if the stop was early or late in the day. The Alice Springs control point is pictured below. We pulled in to Alice Springs in the middle of day 3 and therefore could leave the array on the car. Because the cells get hot and produce less power when hot, we spray the array with de-ionized water when charging but not driving (while driving the convective cooling of air over the array keeps it cool). Ethan and Rachel are quickly wiping water off the array so we can get back on the road at the end of our 30 minute stop.
















Late on day 3 we pulled into Kulgera for a short control stop. Unfortunately there was no time to visit the pub.















On the evening of day 3 we took this group picture with Eleanor and the southern stars. I thought we had grabbed our whole 15 person caravan for this picture (our observer, Wendy, is wearing the telltale yellow shirt), but upon close examination it looks like Pete managed to escape.
















Although we reached the end of timing on day 5, we had to wait until the next day to pull into the Victoria Square finish line. Sunswift also had to wait, so we arrived just a few minutes after them although they completed the race about 90 minutes ahead of us. Sunswift is a really friendly team, and they wasted no time in encouraging us to jump into the Victoria Square fountain. The entire team was soaked when we posed for our finish line picture.














I hope you've enjoyed following our race on this blog. We will continue to post updates as we begin work on our next vehicle. Eleanor was shipped home from Adelaide and should be returning in mid December. In the meantime, a few final pictures by day and by night.





























Fiona

In Adelaide

Thursday:
We crossed the end-of-timing control stop in the afternoon. However, the finish line in Adelaide was closed by the time we got there, so we put Eleanor in the trailer for the night.

We finished 2nd out of the Challenge Class silicon array cars :)

Friday:
We drove the car up to Victoria Square, crossed the finish line, and jumped into the fountain. The team spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the city.

We'll pack up the trailer tomorrow and head to Sydney on Monday.

kelly

A nice finish in 2nd.

I just got this report from Alex Hayman, in Australia:

"We pulled into the Adelaide timing point at 431pm on Thursday, approximately one hour behind UNSW. So, 6th overall, 5th challenge class, and 2nd in Silicon class.

Done.
Alex"

We're extremely pleased.

Third Stage Stop

We've arrived at Kulgera. We're in fourth place in the Challenge class overall; first in the Silicon category, which is exciting. Today we passed Team Twente from the Netherlands who had quite unfortunately rolled their car, breaking suspension and array components. Hopefully they'll get back up and running soon. They took a picture of us passing.

Teams that had trouble at the beginning of the race (UNSW, Aurora 101) are catching up, so it'll be an exciting finish.

Second Stage Stop

We've reached the 1169 kilometer mark. Ethan and Mike switched off driving, taking over from Kelly and Fiona the first day. We encountered no other solar cars on the road, so our standing has not changed, but we did encounter a few bumps in the road. From roughly 11 AM - 4 PM, we were under the cloud of a brush fire; we also burst a tire and had to change part of our suspension. We're still keeping an eye on our battery life. Overall though, we're pretty happy with where we are so far and look forward to our third day.

First Stage Stop

The race began yesterday morning. We left Darwin at 8:36 AM, reached our first control stop in Katherine at 1:02 PM, and stayed for a required half-hour rest before hitting the road again. We ended the day by arriving in Dunmarra at 5:39 PM, a minute before the required stop time.

Overall things are going well. We did use a bit more of our battery than expected, but made good time. At this stage, we are in 1st place for the Silicon Array Class, in 5th place for the Challenge Class, and 6th overall. We'd like to give a shout-out to Panasonic, as their other sponsored team, Tokai University, is in first place overall.

The Race is On

The SEVT has finished qualifying for the race and is set to start tomorrow. It is Saturday night and we are peeling potatoes and making sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch. For the past few days we have been inspected by race officials and Australian road authorities, given all of our drivers test time driving on the left side of the road, and tweaked and optimized our car. Everyone is excited and ready to go.