MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team

WSC 2011 Final Results

2011-11-03T23:59:00.006-04:00

The final results from WSC went up -- the provisional results were contested, and WSC officials found a few accounting errors. We moved up one place to 15th, with the same number of solar kilometers (2222).

Full results here.

Meant to be Bent: a new series on creative interpretation of rules by Adam Delton

2011-11-01T16:20:00.000-04:00

As many of you may have ascertained from the blog posts of recent weeks, WSC 2011 was a particularly... challenging World Solar Challenge for the MIT team. Along the road to Adelaide we had some times where team morale was not particularly high, and it was often during these times that I made it my role to lighten the mood a bit with some completely serious speculation on methods designed to circumvent certain WSC regulations. By popular request, I am now embarking on a mission to fully explore these interesting and complex ideas and share them with you. As a disclaimer, all of what I detail in "Meant to be Bent" is completely serious. The concepts that follow have been explained to WSC officials in a face-to-face setting, and each one has failed to be disallowed under the current set of rules. That said, I cannot guarantee their compliance with 2013 rules. So now, for Meant to be Bent, Episode I:

MEANT TO BE BENT

Swarm of Insolation Disrupting High Altitude Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (aka SIDHAUAV)

- the concept is that the team will invest in repurposing discarded military drones to automatically track the position of other solar teams' vehicles during the race day from a high altitude, and maintaining a position directly between the sun of our solar system and that team's array of solar cells

-the effect is simulated here on the UC Berkeley, Team CalSol's 2011 vehicle, "Impulse"

before:

after:

(head to calsol.berkeley.edu to check out Impulse and our good friends at CalSol)

- by remaining high enough in the air, the drone can perform its task relatively undetected, by resembling a (strangely persistent) soaring bird

- modifications to the wings may need to be made to increase the shadow size of the craft

- with a fleet of these artificially creating less-than-ideal sun conditions for non-MIT vehicles, we will secure ourselves a nice edge over the competition

Bottom Line:
Cost: $40 million per drone (possible price break for order of 30+)
Time: full-time project for several aerospace engineers, electrical engineers, and computer science seniors / grad students
Legality: undetectable
Awesome-Factor: 7.8/10

Further Exploration:
- training actual birds to block insolation
- mirror/lens/fiber optic system on drones to redirect intercepted sunlight to MIT array for further advantage

More Race Photos

2011-10-29T13:00:00.001-04:00

A couple more race photos! Photo credit: Simon Calcutt (our awesome British Electrical Engineer). Simon had worked with the team when he had been at MIT as an exchange student from Cambridge University. It was wonderful to have him join us in Australia this year.

The team at the finish line: Victoria Square in Adelaide.

Chopper in the Australian outback.

Epic sunset picture.

Chopper + Trailer under the night sky.

Driving through the rain. Rain-X and Silicone sealant go a long way.

Kelly cruising along.

Team paparazzi taking pictures of our lead car followed by the solar car and chase.

Day 7 - River Deep, Mountain High

2011-10-27T12:12:00.003-04:00

At the end of Day 6, we laid out our ole' trusty blue tarp at a campground in Glendambo and slept there*. We woke up to a sky full of clouds and misery.

Our scout car drove south, seeking sunnier skies. The rest of the team, with our trailered car, followed scout forward until we found a nice, flat spot with decent sun. After charging our pack from the array, we trailered the car back a couple hundred kilometers and proceeded to drive Chopper forward until we hit Port Augusta. Along the way, we encountered plenty of rolling hills, cattle grates, gusts of wind, and fast road trains.

Waiting for the clouds to break during our morning charge:

Solarcars were not allowed to drive south of Port Augusta after a certain time, so we trailered Chopper and took our convoy south to Adelaide.

We dropped out bags off at Quest in Adelaide and devoured a Lebanese meal. As you may know, Adelaide means partytime!, so we proceeded to meet up with other teams and celebrate the end of the race.

On Sunday, we drove up to the WSC finish line in Victoria Square. Rachel, Andy, and Annette then dashed off to the airport to catch their flights home. The rest of the team cleaned out our support vehicles, packed our supplies, and got ready to ship the trailer home.

That night, we attended the awards ceremony and got to congratulate the seven teams that finished the race without trailering. I'd like to give kudos to the UMichigan team not only for performing well, but also for embodying the spirit of the race and giving us help when we needed it. Thanks, UM, for lending us battery modules. You da best.

The race results were released that night, and we saw that we finished 16th out of the 37 (or 35?) competing teams.

The next morning, we flew out of Adelaide and encountered various mishaps at the Sydney airport and at LAX. We are now safely in Cambridge :D

We are humbled by the turn of events that happened in WSC 2011: hellish circumstances, a gracious donation, broken dreams, and new hope. Here's a big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed time, energy, money, materials, and well wishes to the team.

WSC 2011

MIT SEVT

(Both photos by Chris Pentacoff. Thanks dude.)
*At the end of Day 6 we drove our convoy north of Glendambo, desperate to find sun for an evening charge. While passing a non-MIT vehicle, our truck hit an emu which later died. Nameless Emu, we apologize deeply...

Quick race update, more to come

2011-10-24T12:48:00.002-04:00

On the last day we woke up to grey skies with a few patches of sun in the distance. We tried to trailer to an area with more sun, but ended up underestimating how much the clouds would clear up and had to trailer back up the highway a bit to add more solar miles to our trip. In the end, we completed 2222 km on solar power (total coincidence for the number of km) and ended up in 16th place based on provisional results. After Port Augusta, we packed the car up again to get to Adelaide for the night and a much deserved night off.

On Sunday morning, the WSC officials kindly let us parade to the finish line out of finishing order so that I could cross the finish line with the team and still make my flight back to the states at 10:50am. A few excited team members made the traditional jump into the fountain and we took our car through the final inspection to show we had complied with race regulations.

Everyone flew home on Monday to get back to classes and start making up work we missed for the race. Thank you to all the MIT professors who have made coming to WSC possible for the SEVT in the middle of the semester.

We'll post a bunch more pictures of the race soon. Thanks to everyone who has been following our blog over the race. Our total number of page views has more than doubled in the past month. It's very exciting to have some many people checking in on our progress.

Day 6 - Ain't no sunshine

2011-10-21T08:37:00.008-04:00

After an interesting night spent huddled up in tents, cars, and the trailer to shield ourselves from the downpours, we woke up to a miserable sight: heavy clouds and a reading of 0.166 Amps on the test solar cell on roof of our chase car. Needless to say we were not getting a morning charge, much less making the next checkpoint before closing.

So after some reluctance, we started off the morning with the car in the trailer - our first time since we had started the race some 1901 kilometres prior. We were all a bit disappointed to have to pack Chopper up inside, but pretty proud of how far we had gotten considering we had run the entire race on 16kg of lithium-ion cells (when rules allow 21kg) [Why? see this blog post] as well as faced some other significant hurdles.

Chopper del Sol underneath an overcast sky.

We did manage to get a brief charge in to drive further, increasing our solar kilometers travelled. Couple historical landmarks passed include Australia's Dog Fence which, at 7000km, is the longest fence in the world. It keeps the wild dogs (dingos) out of sheep country in Southern Australia. With all that hype we were expecting something more dramatic, but turns out it was just a cattle grid and some barbed wire. We also passed a lot of opal mines along the way.

The weather remained dreadful all afternoon. We kept driving along, watching the Amp-hours consumed slowly increase on our battery pack. To show how rotten our luck has been, here a screen shot of the satellite imagery of the mass of clouds sitting mostly immobile above the Stuart Highway for today:

The clouds sitting over the Stuart Highway.

We're camped out in Glendambo, some 600km north of the race finish, waiting for some sun tomorrow to hopefully power us through the finish to Adelaide. The forecast is looking good and we saw a couple stars tonight.

Day 5 - Sunshine and Daisies in Hell and High Water

2011-10-20T08:25:00.001-04:00

Geezus. What the hell is going on. Today was by far the craziest day on the race. We faced fire, smoke, rain, thunder, lightning and abundant sunshine all in one day. Read on.

We started the day with a fantastic morning charge, and the day was looking great. Our array was rocking, we were passing teams left and right, and cruising at up to 76 kph without significantly draining our pack. Our position over the last couple days has moved up a few places, and now we're chasing the Swiss at 16th place (out of 35 teams). With all the challenges we've faced and overcome, we're proud to be in that position. We also needed to gain time to make the Alice Springs checkpoint since you can only miss one checkpoint before being required to trailer your solar car.

We hit the Alice Springs checkpoint in the early morning (the closest we came to city driving yet) and cruised through. For the rest of the day, we got even more sunshine, allowing us to hit our highest speed yet. Things were looking good for the SEVT, but the weather gods did not have more sun in store for us.

Our scout and ground crew back home reported gathering clouds, and we knew we were headed into some crazy weather. At the mid-afternoon Kulgera checkpoint, we had gained two hours on the next team, and officials were also reporting brush fires up ahead. We scrambled out of Kulgera and straight into ever-increasingly grey skies. Below is our strategy team trying to figure out how to deal with the situation.

About a half hour out of Kulgera, we could see smoke billowing in the distance. As we neared, we could even see flames in the distance and the fire got closer to the road the further south we went. We were shortly in a hellish wasteland of burning shrubbery and scorched earth. The scene was surreal. Below is the solar car passing the scorched shoulder - we could literally see the brush and trees burning.

We first hit rain at around 2-3pm. Lauren was unfazed, and we kept charging through the rain, no matter how hard it got. Rain-X and a little silicone on the canopy seal go a long way. We dropped our speed to account for the drop in array power, but never stopped moving forward. We don't give up that easily.

The weather stayed grey and by 4pm our array was producing no power at all. We decided to stop about 20 minutes early to avoid completely emptying our battery pack when we found a reasonable camping site. We gathered our cars and built a covering from the rain so we could cook dinner and stay reasonably dry. I'm currently writing this post from the front seat of our chase vehicle while it's pouring outside. Maybe we'll get some sun tomorrow to keep going, otherwise we may need to trailer south towards Adelaide. For now, we're sleeping in the trailer, tents and the cars while this weather clears out. We'll let you know how tomorrow turns out.

Major props to Annette and Andy Batzer, the parents of one of our students. They joined us in 2009 and came back to support the team. They have been there time and time again to help cook, manage and take care of every other little thing that we forgot. Today, they set up a shelter and cooked us some fantastic spaghetti in ludicrous amounts. A huge thank you to Andy and Annette for the massive amount of work they have put into making this trip a success.

Day 4 - Two girls, one solar car

2011-10-19T07:14:00.006-04:00

SUNSHINE! Finally. The sun broke through today, topping off our battery pack after yesterday's hold at Tennant Creek. That meant we had a completely full battery pack starting this morning, along with abundant sunshine.

We upped our speed to 60-70 kph, finally allowing Chopper to strut its stuff. Let me introduce you to our drivers, Lauren and Kelly. They have been at the helm of Chopper, cruising down the highway for extremely long shifts. A solar car driver shift lasts around 4-5 hours (the time between checkpoints). Lauren (a senior mechanical engineer) is pictured below, rockin some team-issued aviators before her driving shift.

Kelly (a senior electrical engineer) took the earlier shift, driving 5 hours in the heat and humidity to make it to the next checkpoint. They honestly do have the most exhausting job on the team. Below, tired driver is tired.

One terrifying moment was when we were run off the road by an oversize load trucking the other way. Our scout warned us via radio a large truck was coming, and when we responded "ok well move over to the edge of the lane" they told us "NO GET THE HELL OFF THE ROAD". We wisely followed their advice.

We still had some clouds in the afternoon, but we at least got some awesome pics out of it. At the end of day 4, we made it to the Tropic of Capricorn, juts north of Alice Springs. Our evening charge also gave us a beautiful sunset, its reflection captured here off the solar array.

Tonight, were staying just a few meters from the Tropic of Capricorn landmark. After some good food and hanging out with Durham University (also at our campsite). Below is a pic from our campsite. Another day tomorrow - right now we've got to catch some sleep for our morning charge.

Day 3 - Solar Car vs Nature

2011-10-18T04:50:00.004-04:00

And were still choppin. The first thing we noticed was the cloud layer this morning - enough clouds to the east that our morning charge was far from expected. With that, we headed down Stuart Hwy at a conservative pace in order to charge the battery pack over the length of the drive.

Once again, nature put up a tough fight. There were some major fires to the south throwing up large smoke clouds - this led to a huge decrease in array power. We played it safe most of the day, recharging our pack but still making headway. We planned to pass the Tennant Creek checkpoint at 1pm or so, but found ourselves with a dozen other teams who had been held at the checkpoint.

Apparently a road closure further south due to the fires held up some teams for around 4 hours, so WSC decided to hold all teams at the Tennant Creek checkpoint by the same amount. What that means for us (and the other teams) is that we will camp here tonight, and continue on tomorrow morning when our hold is complete. Although this allows us to get a complete charge on our battery pack, it makes completion of the race a lot more difficult (since we've been delayed by 4 hours). We will work out our strategy tonight to figure out our optimal speed and gain on our competitors tomorrow. In the pic below were hanging out at Tennant Creek and charging.

One thing we noticed is that our conventional moped tires are performing quite poorly. There has been quite a lot of commotion surrounding tires at WSC, mostly because Michelin decided not to provide their tires to most teams, including MIT. With our own commercially available tires having a rolling resistance coefficient three times that of the Michelins, there is little chance that we and our moped-tire compatriots can stand upon the podium. We will continue with these tires even though it leaves us at a pretty big disadvantage.

For now, were staying at Tennant Creek with a dozen other teams, and taking off tomorrow. We'll update you with more info as we get it. Oh and check out the baby kangaroo!

Day 2 - The Journey Continues!

2011-10-17T06:41:00.004-04:00

We kept on charging down the Stuart Highway today, trying to get past the next control point and more. Our newly constructed battery pack (thanks UMich!!!) has a smaller capacity due to a lack of battery protection system circuitry, so we depleted most of it yesterday. Our goal was to end with more "in the tank".

In fact, at certain times we were charging the car while driving! Granted, we kept our pace conservative to not deplete the battery pack further. By the end of the day, we ended with a battery pack more full than when we started.

But Nature was not on our side today. We had large hazy clouds and some smoke floating over us all day. Our scout team (several kilometers ahead) kept reporting that they fared no better, and indeed we had cloud cover in some form for the entire day. With lack of sun, we ended the day around kilometer marker 766, not exactly what we wanted, but the environmental conditions required it. That gives us a tough challenge tomorrow, but we're looking forward to it.

World Solar Challenge 2011

2011-10-16T07:33:00.003-04:00

And we're off!! MIT SEVT started World Solar Challenge 2011 today, kicking off a 3000km race across the outback.

We started around 9am on Sunday morning, down a packed street in downtown Darwin. There was a huge amount of media and press there - kind of crazy actually. The start went off without a hitch and we soon found ourselves cruising down Stuart's Highway (the main road we go choppin' on).

After passing a few broken down cars, we found ourselves with a few problems of our own. After a shredded tyre (a quick turnaround thanks to our awesome tyre crew) we realized we were suffering a problem with our array. Some quick math and guesstimates proved that it would be worth the lost time to pull over and solve it - and luckily our EE team managed to isolate the problem and get us back up and running at full power (we saw ~1100 watts today, a fantastic number). We sprinted to the next checkpoint and managed to slip in just a few minutes before it closed, and kept driving until we found our perfect array charging location just off the highway.

After day 1, we find ourselves just around kilometer 400. A solid performance, but we're confident we can better that distance tomorrow. Right now its about 8pm and we've already tucked Chopper in bed. Time to get some rest and prep for the next day - ideally not as eventful and exciting as today.

Off to hang out under Australian skies. Check back soon for more updates.

This post and every one from the outback is brought to you by Satellitephonestore.com - one of our new sponsors that gave us satellite phones and data to keep in touch with each other and our supporters back home.

Our not-so-secret secret...

2011-10-15T00:16:00.010-04:00

So if you've been looking closely at some of the pictures we've posted, you may have noticed something unusual...

...our red tires!

It's about time we disclose our secret as rumours have been buzzing around WSC about these.

Adam is interviewed by Japanese TV.

These are custom-made solid polyurethane tires mounted on specially-machined anodized aluminium wheels. Dimensions are: 1 3/8” x 20 3/4”. We have been working all summer with our wonderful and enthusiastic sponsors HSMWorks, Spracher Engineering, and TWT Group to develop these new solar car tires . Special thanks to Anthony Graves, Aidan Bradley, and Bill Spracher for all their hard work with making these possible.

They have a low rolling resistance and thus help make our car highly efficient. We've been test driving them around and so far the numbers are looking good. This morning they passed dynamic scrutineering and we ran our time trial on these.

After the race we plan to continue working with Spracher and TWT Group to further develop these with the hopes of producing a new solar car tire for the open market. Look to see more of these in future races!

[Post-Race Edit]: As you can read in later blog posts we ended up not running the full race on these tires. We swapped them out Day 1 for moped tires. There were a couple issues with these tires causing them to fail. We will continue testing and developing these over the next couple months to resolve the issue. Stay tuned.

Thank you Michigan Solar Car!!

2011-10-14T23:05:00.007-04:00

We would like to say a huge thank you to the University of Michigan Solar Car team for generously donating their spare battery pack. We worked all night with the modules lent to us by Michigan, and managed to pull it together just in time. Our electrical engineers were successfully able to build a new pack last night which the scrutineers approved an hour before dynamic testing. Hats off to University of Michigan - without them we would not be running this race.

We added a Michigan sticker to our trailer as a tiny thank you.

The ultimate test: 38 hours before the start of the race

2011-10-14T04:35:00.007-04:00

Battery update:

Our shippers have failed to ship our battery pack to Darwin, Australia.

The team faces two options:

1. Charter a plane for $15,000 to ship our battery pack to Darwin (which we would maybe receive by the start of the race)

2. Build a new battery pack from nothing

True to the MIT SEVT engineering spirit, we have chosen option #2.

So here is begins: 38 hours before the start of the race the team, already severely sleep deprived, sets out to build a new battery pack for the race.

We would like to thank to following teams for offering to donate bits and pieces of their packs: Stanford, CalSol, Michigan, UNSW, and Aurora.

We have decided to use Michigan's spare battery pack, which we are now disassembling to produce our own.

Screw textbooks, screw psets, screw exams: this is the true test of engineering. It's go time:

In the meantime: A shameless sponsorship plug. http://solar-cars.scripts.mit.edu/sponsorship/adoptacell.php Think of it as powering us through the next 38 hours of pure brains, adrenaline, and sheer perseverance.

-----------

Couple more photos:

The donations begin to arrive.

The debating begins.

Picture Update!

2011-10-13T18:09:00.013-04:00

Having successfully acquired the memory cards from everyone's cameras I now have a plethora of pictures to post. These are from the past several days:

This one here is from when we went to pick up the trailer from the shippers. Captain Alejandro Arambula poses in the "high visibility" jackets we wear whenever we have the solar car out on public roads. Funny little anecdote: The team actually took a wrong turn at the airport and almost ended up on the tarmac with all the planes. Even though people frequently ask us if the "car can fly" .. we're not quite there yet.

This next one was when we first arrived at Hidden Valley. The World Solar Challenge draws a lot of media attention and we found ourselves the focus of several camera crews when we unloaded Chopper del Sol for the first time on Australian soil.

The electrical engineers [EEs] working on the array while it charges the battery pack. It is not uncommon to spot EEs crouched under solar car arrays, which provide about a Kilowatt of power to the vehicle (that's less than your typical hair dryer). The car then races 3000km at highway speeds, so ensuring that everything is working as efficiently as possible is absolutely crucial.

More EEs under arrays: Here Simon Calcutt, Alexander Hayman, and George Hansel work on programming the Maximum Power Point Trackers [MPPTs] - the electrical system on the car which allows us to draw the maximum power from the array by determining how much current should be drawn from a string of cells.

As you may remember from a previous blog post, one of the challenges the team has been facing is that our battery pack has been held in Singapore due to a mistake our shipper's part. Our EEs quickly put together the pack above, made from Golf Cart lead-acid batteries so that we could test-drive the car. After several hours of international phone calls, we have news that our battery pack should arrive late tonight.

Still despite not having our race pack, the car is driving great. Above is a picture of the car zooming by at around 47 mph (75 km/h). The car does look a bit bare as we have yet to add our brand new sponsor stickers to the car (it's on the to-do list for today). However, our sponsors are not forgotten: all our race and support vehicles have been decked out with brand new color stickers (and notice the back of Bruce's shirt, also sporting our sponsor logos).

Again a huge thank you to all our sponsors. This incredible project would not have been possible without you.

Above, Conan Hom times driver Lauren Chai as she practices getting in and out of the car. Drivers are required to get in and out from the car in less than 15 seconds. We passed this with flying colors - one of our drivers made it in 10 seconds.

Rachel, George, Kelly, and myself rocking our awesome MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team t-shirts as we watch the proceedings on the track.

Team members attached the large "Solar Vehicle Ahead" sticker to the chase car. WSC regulations require all chase support vehicles to have this as we do drive on the Stuart highway alongside the general public.

Here are a couple pictures from scrutineering. Several teams are inspected at the same time, so it is a great opportunity to go check out other teams' cars. It's awesome to see the variety in designs:

Time to join the team for test driving. I'll add more pictures when I get the time. Keep checking back!

Day 3 -- Scrutineering

2011-10-12T08:32:00.002-04:00

Today we had a scrutineering slot at 11am to verify regulations compliance. We passed, with the exception of the battery examination. Because our battery pack is still in transit to Darwin, the race officials graciously granted us permission to go through battery scrutineering later on.

Lauren (right) and Kelly (left) at driver weigh-in. Photo credit Andy Batzer.

Chopper del Sol during scrutineering. Photo credit Andy Batzer.

Our array, propped up on its stand. Photo credit George Hansel.

The team is pretty happy that scrutineering went well. We will continue to haul ass through the next few days to get the car ready for the race. Tomorrow, we will test drive and do some fine-tuning.

Hidden Valley: Day 2 - Afternoon update

2011-10-11T01:50:00.022-04:00

We ended up working pretty late last night to get the car ready for driving today. We still have a lot of work to do but progress is good.

A little about what's happening right now: We are at Hidden Valley, a race track near the city of Darwin. Before the race starts all teams must undergo scrutineering, where race officials inspect the car to make sure it passes all technical regulations; all cars then complete a time trial to determine start order.

The track is pretty animated right now. All teams are making last minute adjustments and modifications to get their cars in race-ready shape. It's fun to see the different vehicles and teams. Couple quick stats: There are 37 teams registered to compete as of the Scrutineering Draw announced an hour ago: http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/page/view_by_id/33

21 different countries are represented.

While part of the team works on the car the rest of the team is getting together all other race equipment. Here Bruce and Adam hold up our 8ft anemometer tower, which will be mounted on our lead car.

We still have a lot of work to do.. so it's looking like another long night. We have a couple more team members arriving tonight and tomorrow.

Chopper is at Hidden Valley!!

2011-10-10T12:29:00.007-04:00

We spent most of the daytime finishing up errands and buying materials that we needed, anxiously waiting for our shipping agent to clear up our customs issues. At 3pm we finally got the call and sprinted over to the Darwin airport to get our trailer. By 5pm, Chopper had arrived at Hidden Valley! We unpacked all our gear and went to work immediately.

We mostly had to finish lots of detail work - the night before we went through the rules one more time and marked a couple things we had to adjust in order to comply. We also built a solar array stand for charging pre- and post-race hours. Our trailer got updated with sponsor stickers.

We left pretty late, but there were still a few teams working! We're back at the SEVT shack to a few hours of sleep, then back to the track for some more work. Stay tuned for more updates!

A good meal is easy to find (in Darwin)

2011-10-09T06:31:00.004-04:00

After thirty hours of travel, upon arriving to our house in Darwin, Alix and Michael set out with a fresh energy for food preparation. A quick trip to the grocery store and our kitchen was stocked with makings of a delicious meal for the team: salad, mozzarella, tomatoes, delicious Darwin carrots, ground beef, and sausages (curiously marked only as "meat").

Alejandro, team captain ("el Capitan"), supervises what in Australia is known as the "barbie".

Alex (left) and Adam (right), display both their enthusiasm for the delicious salad and their unwillingness to endure Darwin's 30C (86F) heat.

After taking care of their hunger, MIT students Alejandro, Kelly, and Rachel tend to their next-most-important need: Internet. They do so while wearing the team uniform.

Fun Australia facts: the standard soda can is slightly larger than in the US (375 mL vs 355) and our house keys are made of titanium.

Chopper has been found in Darwin (happily swimming)

2011-10-09T05:49:00.005-04:00

Patiently waiting for the carnet and their team members to arrive in Darwin, Rachel, Simon, and Alex visited the "Crocosaurus Cove" and discovered Chopper . . . though not del Sol. He seemed pretty happy, as a solar-heated reptile who weighs just about 3 times that of our Chopper.

Team in Australia

2011-10-08T20:28:00.003-04:00

A few members arrived on Friday and the rest of the team will be here this afternoon.
Our car has arrived safely in Darwin, but we are still waiting on our Carnet to get it through customs. Hopefully we can get that all sorted out on Monday morning and start prepping for the race.

We will post pictures in the next few days, but our current internet connection is a bit too slow for that.We will also be updating our progress on our new twitter account @ChopperdelSol
We also have satellite phones with a data plan thanks to SatellitePhoneStore.com and will be able to send out pictures and updates while racing in the Outback!

Thank you to all our sponsors who have helped us get here. We are all excited to race!

Solar Car begins its journey to Darwin, Australia.

2011-09-27T04:30:00.004-04:00

‎3:56 AM EST: Chopper del Sol is secured in its trailer, ready to begin the voyage to Darwin, Australia.

Late in the night the team said goodbye to the car as it drove off to JFK Airport. The car flies out to Australia later this week. The team is quite excited as we've been extremely busy working around the clock these past several weeks to get the car in race shape.

Expect more detailed updates soon!

Countdown to the race!

2011-09-23T14:02:00.004-04:00

With 23 days until the race (and just 3 days until Chopper del Sol is shipped), we are working hard on final preparations. The electrical team is finalizing Chopper's cruise control system while the mechanical team finishes up the new battery pack box. As soon as these are complete, the rest of the weekend will be spent packing up tools and spare parts for the race, and test driving (if the Boston weather cooperates).

Thanks to everyone who has helped us get to this point! Here are some pictures of Chopper del Sol on Memorial Drive in Cambridge.

Fiona

Chopper has been Painted!

2011-08-12T20:19:00.018-04:00

The new car has been painted! We decided to go back to all Insignia White for Chopper v2.0. Here's a quick picture with more detailed too come soon. You're actually looking at the bottom of the car - it's flipped upside down on the table.

Thank you to guys at Metan Marine for doing this for us - new bronze sponsors.

Also, notice our new thermo-formed headlight covers (the black corner of the car in the picture above). Definitely an upgrade from before. Here are some pictures and description of the process:

The body IGES file was cut in SolidWorks to show the section of the nose for the head lights. Extra area is needed to allow for folding which will occur during the thermo-forming. 1/16 inch was removed off the surface to account for the plastic. (It's annoyingly difficult in Solidworks: Copy body without translation, shell one body, subtract). HSMWorks was used to make the 3-D machining contours. I was very grateful to not be messing with MasterCam for this part.

Machining on our Ez-Track with the EVT Porsche in the background.

Finished positive mold after a little sanding and some added epoxy with micro-balloons for s few small diviets

Thermo-forming at the MIT Pappalardo Lab. A big thank you to Dick for helping out when everything was busy with Robocon.

The last step was to cut them down to size and properly attach them to the leading edge of the car.

P.S. Enjoy the new Blog layout. I'll try to change the background picture from time to time. This one if from our road-trip out in the midwest. The team is packing the car up after a long day of testing out in Iowa.

Repairs Update

2011-07-30T19:53:00.018-04:00

We started painting the upper body today with our array carefully masked off. Over the last few weeks we made a new composite lower body and have been working hard to get everything back together. Below are a series of pictures from the repair work.

Below Alex is doing some final sanding work on the lower body. Once the lay-up is pulled from the mold, the work really begins as the top and bottom halves of the mold need to be glued together and the body to be needs to be smoothed to eliminate bumps which increase aerodynamic efficiency. We use 3M micro-balloons mixed in epoxy as a lightweight filler material. Our body takes about 1.5 weeks of nearly continuous micro application and sanding to be ready for painting.

Painting in the composites room ( the car fits into the room by 1 inch)

Mechanical rebuilding: Our Chassis was unharmed, but our upper and lower A-arms need to be rebuilt. Lauren is welding one together below, while Mike works on boring out the spherical bearing pockets. We try to build as many components in-house as possible to make the SEVT a better learning experience for team members.

MIT SEVT back into the shop for repairs

2011-07-06T21:27:00.005-04:00

In early June, MIT SEVT was out testing in the Midwest - we like the flat long stretches much better than driving around in Boston. After three days of successful testing, Chopper del Sol suffered a fairly significant accident in Iowa. Fortunately, our driver walked away unharmed, but there was damage to the lower body and steering that require them to be rebuilt.

The cause was attributed to an issue with the unique steering configuration on Chopper. In response, SEVT is redesigning a significant portion of the steering system, incorporating a time-tested design, but keeping in spirit with the original idea. Look for us at competition this October for more details.

In the meantime, we have been busy in the shop - a new lower body layup was completed successfully, and the chassis is on its way toward incorporating the redesign. Thanks for your continued support - we'll keep you updated as we move toward competition.

Below is a picture of our bottom body layup, when it was just pulled out of the mold.

Picture update

2011-05-23T11:11:00.008-04:00

I thought I would add some pictures of the work we have been up to. I'm avoiding the shop while the EEs works on the car and make it beep constantly.

EES doing some final testing on the car before the road trip

Tim the Beaver with solar car making tools. Razor blades are the best tools for everything from cutting holes in Kevlar layups to applying epoxy. The wall behind him has some testing samples of composites methods we use on the car.

Video of our canopy hinge working. It's made with a four bar linkage that results in upward lift before turning to make the canopy clear the roll bar.

FEA of the spindle. The main point of all the testing is to find out what breaks before the race. The spindle shown was bent during some initial testing on a track. Nothing else was damaged including the driver. The wrong alloy and heat treatment was ordered on this bent spindle, which has been fixed. It was fairly amusing how perfectly the FEA and real deformation matched.

Applying the solar array. After encapsulating our solar cells, we applied them to the array using silicone adhesive. The sand bags are to keep everything flat while the silicone cure. We did this process at night to avoid bothering everyone in the building with the smell of vinegar, which silicone release while it cures.

Testing for the Summer Road Trip

2011-05-22T21:49:00.004-04:00

We're heading out on a summer road trip tomorrow for some open road testing and sponsor visits. After finals, the team has been working hard on final preparations to get the car fully operational.
Our approximate route is below.

View Larger Map

Unveiling!

2011-05-10T21:03:00.013-04:00

On April 12 he MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team unveiled its 2011 World Solar Challenge Vehicle Chopper del Sol. The event was held in Lobby 10 and featured talks regarding the various systems of the car as well as new design features.

The event was a great success! Thank you to all the sponsors, MIT faculty, students, press, alumni, as well as family and friends who attended. Here are a couple more pictures courtesy of Ed Moriarty:

Check out our new homepage with Chopper del Sol! Thanks to James Granata for the awesome design.

Over the next couple weeks the team will be testing Chopper around Cambridge as well as during our team road trip to the midwest. Check back here for more updates throughout the summer!

New Platinum & Gold Sponsors

2011-05-05T19:50:00.008-04:00

The MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team is proud to announce the addition of our newest Platinum Sponsor: Konica Minolta.

Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. (Konica Minolta), a leading provider of advanced imaging and networking technologies for the desktop to the print shop, announced they will be supporting MIT SEVT for the next two years as a Platinum Sponsor.

“Sponsoring the MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team and their participation in the upcoming World Solar challenge supports our dedication to both innovation and the environment,” said Kevin Kern, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. “The team’s efforts demonstrate what can happen when two important initiatives come together, and as a Platinum Sponsor, this further demonstrates how stakeholders can count on Konica Minolta to continue encouraging advancements in environmental sustainability.”

We look forward to working with Konica Minolta in the future - they recently came by the shop at MIT to present the team with a check!

Also joining the MIT SEVT family as a Silver Sponsor is Lockheed Martin. We met our Lockheed contact at a career fair on campus that SEVT attended, and Lockheed was very interested in supporting the team. Recently, a group of Lockheed executives toured the shop to check out the car and our facility - they left very impressed and vowed to support the team in the future.

Visit us on Facebook

2011-05-02T22:24:00.001-04:00

Three New Bronze Sponsors

2011-04-04T22:41:00.004-04:00

TDK-Lambda, Interface Inc, and Omega Engineering have become our newest Bronze sponsors with donations of parts for a motor dyno I am working on to test the efficiency of our motor and motor controller. We can use this data to make better strategy decisions during the race and to determine if a newer motor is worth the price. The dyno will also be open to other student projects as it provides a motor testing range which is not present in any other MIT lab.

TDK Lambda provided the team with a Genesys 3.3 kW power supply. They has sponsored us with smaller supplies in the past which fills most of our needs, but running the motor a full tilt needs a bit more juice.

Interface has donated a 20Nm torque transducer for measuring torque directly in the output shaft of the motor. This allows for an accurate measurement without other losses affecting the results.

Information is useless without an accurate way to collect it. This 24 bit USB data acquisition module will monitor 16 analog signals ranging from +_ .078V to +- 20V at a 1kHz aggregate sample rate. It also has 500V isolation for peace of mind when plugging in your expensive (from a student perspective) personal laptop!

HSMWorks Sponsors Team with Software

2011-04-02T13:04:00.004-04:00

HSMWorks has donated their full CAM software for use by MIT vehicle teams in our N51 shop. The description of their software below is from their website http://www.hsmworks.com/.

HSMWorks is a fully integrated CAM for SolidWorks, which provides effective generation of high quality 2D, 3D and 3+2 milling toolpaths for high speed machining.
The HSMWorks interface is designed for SolidWorks users and machinists alike. If you know SolidWorks, getting to know HSMWorks will be easy and straight forward.

I first used HSMWorks in another MIT lab and was blown away by its ease of use and speed. It is a huge step up from Mastercam 9 which we previously used and is sure to significantly reduce the number of hours we spend prepping for machining. Another plus to HSMWorks is their incredible service. It was less then 24 hours between asking for the software and having the license keys in my inbox!

THANK YOU to the HSMWorks team.

I'm off to make some G-code sans profanity.

~Rachel

Wind Tunnel Testing

2011-03-27T12:11:00.004-04:00

We're back from the wind tunnel! We headed up to Michigan over spring break to test the vehicle at the Ford Driveability Test Facility. During the tests, we validated all our CFD results, made small modifications and adjustments, and finally characterized the vehicle in a variety of situations. Here are a couple teasers of the vehicle; you'll have to wait until the unveiling on April 12 for the full view.

In addition to testing the body, we are continuing development of the electrical system. In the next couple of weeks, we will wire the full array and get the basic system up and running before the unveiling.

The vehicle unveiling will occur April 12th from 4-6pm in Lobby 13 on campus! Check our blog for more details as we get closer to that date. The unveiling will feature a formal presentation from the team as well, and is open to the general public.

Body Work

2011-01-18T11:55:00.001-05:00

It's January! Classes start in February, so we're at the shop every day. One of our major tasks is finishing the body. We're getting buff and getting cut to improve future performance. Chopper del Sol is shaping up to be a lean mean endurance machine, with the ability to last a long time under the hot Australian sun.

In addition to working on the body, we're redesigning the electronics and taking care of details for the race. 9 months to go!

Hong Kong Trip

2011-01-18T11:42:00.000-05:00

We were invited to visit the Institute for Vocational Education (Tsing Yi campus) in Hong Kong to participate in sharing sessions. IVE has built two generations of SOPHIE, a solar car, and they hope to compete in the 2013 World Solar Challenge.

Alejandro, Rachel, Maddie, and I were honored to go to Hong Kong and help the talented IVE team. I think that everyone learned a lot and came away with a renewed desire to rayce well.

element14 Sponsors MIT SEVT

2010-12-26T19:08:00.001-05:00

We are very pleased to announce our newest sponsor element14, who have donated much needed tools and equipment. We give many thanks to Nicole and others for making this happen.

Here is a short description of element14. Please check them out.

element14 is a new, innovative information portal and eCommunity specifically built for electronic design engineers. It provides product data, design tools and technology information, whilst incorporating web 2.0 functionality to facilitate communication, interaction, collaboration and information sharing between colleagues around the world. Users can consult experts, discover trends, post blogs, articles and comments in this world-wide forum.

Body Layup!

2010-11-14T10:32:00.000-05:00

Our top mold arrived in Cambridge on Thursday, and we are cooking our layup right now.

From top to bottom: waxing the mold, cutting composites to size, and our curing oven.

I'm super excited to see how it turns out.

NovaLynx and Gill Instruments sponsor MIT SEVT

2010-06-15T14:34:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to NovaLynx and Gill Instruments, who have donated an ultrasonic anemometer and related equipment to our team.

McKay School Visit and Junior Solar Sprints

2010-06-15T14:10:00.000-04:00

In May, some students from the McKay School in Boston came to see Eleanor. George, Mike, and I showed them the shop and the car.

George and Mike talking with the students.

We also had the opportunity to display Eleanor at the Junior Solar Sprints in Cambridge, which was held at MIT's track.

We enjoyed seeing the mini solar cars that the children built and raced!

Future solar raycers.

SEVT Featured in Technology Review

2010-04-27T23:15:00.001-04:00

The May/June 2010 issue of the Technology Review features an article about the SEVT's experience in the 2009 Global Green Challenge.
Racing With the Sun

You can also check out the slide show and video.

Enjoy!

Fiona

South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade

2010-03-15T12:56:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we drove Eleanor to South Boston and marched in the parade. It was raining the entire time, but there was still a sizable crowd. Many parade watchers were in awe when they saw Eleanor.

Waiting before the parade began.

Many thanks to Rick Winterson (MIT '56) for making arrangements for us to participate in the parade.

Visit from Codman Academy

2010-02-13T13:54:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, we had almost 50 students come to visit from the Codman Academy Charter School. George, Maddie, and I had fun teaching them about the car and showing them around the shop.

Explaining the electrical system during the presentation.

Checking out Eleanor in the shop.

We were glad to have the students over, and maybe we'll see them again next year!

Photo credit: Maddie Hickman

TeenLife Boston Community Volunteer Fair

2010-02-13T12:17:00.001-05:00

Last Sunday, we took Eleanor to the TeenLife Boston fair in Chestnut Hill. People were pretty enthusiastic about the car and asked a lot of questions.

Before the fair began.

Michael B., Fiona, and Mike talk with fair participants.

We enjoyed showing the car at the fair. Thanks to TeenLife Boston for inviting us!

Photo credit: Chris Pentacoff

The Tech article, Boston Teen Life Fair

2010-01-31T17:03:00.003-05:00

Last week, Eleanor and the SEVT were featured in The Tech, MIT's student newspaper.

On Saturday, February 7th, we will be displaying Eleanor at the TeenLife Boston Community Service Fair in Chestnut Hill, MA. This will be Eleanor's first public appearance since Australia. In fact, she hasn't been shown in the U.S. since we visited the Detroit Science Center this past summer.

Fiona

Adopt a Cell!

2010-01-27T19:22:00.004-05:00

Now that the Global Green Challenge is over and the new semester is about to begin, the SEVT is actively working on the (still unnamed) vehicle that we hope to race in 2011. In addition to design work, that also means fundraising. A lot of fundraising.

We recently began an "Adopt A Cell" campaign to raise money for the most expensive part of the car, the solar array. For $50, you can adopt one of the 1500 solar cells that will cover Eleanor's successor. You'll also get a nice picture of Eleanor, a subscription to the team newsletter, and you'll be recognized on our website (as well as on this blog).

We've tried to make cell adoption as simple as possible. You can donate with a credit card or send a check. All donations are tax-deductible. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Thanks to the following people who have already adopted cells:

Joseph A. Buttner
Goro Tamai
Muhammad Itani
Wisam R. Omran
Hans Peter Brondmo
Annette and Andy Batzer
Bill Batzer
James M Harvey
Andre C Kelly

-Fiona

Picture Update!

2009-11-04T23:41:00.015-05:00

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

2009-10-31T00:51:00.001-04:00

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.

2009-10-29T10:27:00.000-04:00

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

2009-10-27T18:04:00.006-04:00

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

2009-10-26T21:29:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-25T14:23:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-24T10:09:00.000-04:00

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.

In Darwin

2009-10-21T08:10:00.000-04:00

It's 9:30PM on Wednesday here in Darwin. We (the regular crew) arrived on Monday after spending two days in transit.

Seen on the way to the track on Monday.

Track homestretch.

Rachel's mom made this sweet cover.

Things have been going well. We went through scrutineering today and will test drive tomorrow.

kelly

First Day at the Track

2009-10-20T09:56:00.001-04:00

Late crew arrived last night, so today was our first full day at the track. We got to the Hidden Valley Motor Sports Complex around 8 am and began working on Eleanor and the caravan. In addition to getting Eleanor ready to race, we have to prepare the lead, chase, and trailer-hauling vehicles for scrutineering. Yesterday early crew began wiring up the radios, GPS, “crazy lights,” and laptop power in the lead vehicle. Today we worked on getting chase ready to go, while the Land Cruiser visited the rental company for some repairs.

By the afternoon we had Eleanor ready for some test driving around the track. Kelly, Ethan and I each drove around a few laps. We are scheduled to go to scrutineering on Thursday morning, but will try to get everything ready in order to scrutineer tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to test drive on actual roads on Thursday and Friday. Saturday is the qualifying round which will determine our starting position on Sunday. We will post pictures soon.

Fiona

Pictures from the drive

2009-10-18T19:11:00.002-04:00

A few pictures to go with Alex's update from last night.....

We camped in Camooweal Caves National Park on Friday night. We had it a lot rougher than the night before, no electricity and no internet. We could see a ton of stars though. Here's a long exposure picture of the trailer by night. It's hard to make out the stickers on the trailer because we have not yet put on the new stickers kindly printed for us by 3M. Late crew is bringing the new stickers with them and we'll be putting them on before the end of the week.

In the morning, we visited two of the Camooweal Caves, the Little Nowranie and the Great Nowranie before taking off for Katharine. You can get an idea of the size of the Great Nowranie from this picture. Annette and Alex are standing on the far side of the cave.

While camping in Katharine on Saturday night we saw many smaller kangaroos. We thought this one was a baby until we noticed that it had a joey in its pouch. The pouch is positioned such that the joey can reach the ground and pick up food when the mother kangaroo is picking up food. The University of Michigan Solar Car Team was also camping in Katharine.

We got up early in order to see the Katharine gorges before sending our lead car ahead of the trailer to Darwin. Chris pieced together this panorama taken from the edge of the gorge.

We sent the lead car ahead so we could figure out the details of renting our chase vehicle. After visiting 3 different rental companies, we ended up with a 12 passenger van that should have no trouble holding the people and gear needed to support Eleanor.

Last night, Alex hung out with the Cambridge University Eco Racing Team. We're looking forward to meeting all the teams and checking out Eleanor's competition.

Fiona

(photos: Chris Pentacoff)

2009-10-18T06:22:00.000-04:00

After leaving Barcaldine, we drove a long time, and then stopped for the night in Camooweal National Park, which is famous for having a bunch of caves. The camping spots were 12km off the main highway, on a dirt road, which was a bit of an adventure.

In the morning, we briefly checked out the caves, and then drove for a long time. We stopped for the night in Katherine. Specifically, we camped in Nitimiluk National Park, which is famous for gorges. In the morning, we woke up, briefly checked out the gorges, and then took off on the final stretch for Darwin. Our two vehicle caravan split up, the van sped ahead to work out some car rental issues, and the trailer chugged its way to the track.

The early crew is enjoying a night of peace and relaxation, after 4000km of driving, before late crew arrives tomorrow afternoon. It should be considered an accomplishment that no kangaroos were killed during this 4000km drive, no flat tires, no break downs. I am very thankful, and glad to be back in Darwin. Pulling into the pits brought back a lot of memories. After four long years, we are finally poised to bring MIT back into the solar car racing community.

Alex

Toowoomba to Barcaldine

2009-10-15T08:26:00.001-04:00

Day 2 of our trip is complete. We are at a campsite in Barcaldine, Queensland which happens to have free wireless internet. The rolling hills and trees we drove through yesterday changed to mostly flat roads and scrub bush. But it's getting hotter as we get closer to the outback and we had to keep the heat on in the Land Cruiser during the afternoon to prevent it from overheating. There's much less traffic on the roads, but we are seeing a lot of road trains.

We also saw a fair amount of live wildlife today in addition to the frequent roadkill. When we were stopped in Miles earlier today, we saw a small herd of emu. There were about eight in total.

As the sun was setting, we began to see more and more kangaroos near the highway. We really had to watch out after dark and honk the horn to get them to move off the road.

Here's a picture of Alex. He's dressed interestingly, but at least he didn't hit any kangaroos with the Land Cruiser. Any live kangaroos, that is.

In case you were dubious about the campsite with internet, here's picture of our internet hotspot around the picnic table.

And lastly, a picture from dawn on Coogee Beach. Alex, Andy and Annette stayed in Coogee Beach while Chris and I were in Sydney. We took a bus to meet up with them the morning before we left for Darwin.

Tomorrow our goal is to get as far as Camooweal. If we have time, perhaps we'll get to visit Camooweal Caves National Park.

Fiona

(pictures: Chris Pentacoff)

On the road

2009-10-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

We're stopped at a public library in Miles, Queensland. We left Sydney yesterday morning and drove along the New England Highway to Toowoomba. The road was a littler hillier than anticipated, so Andy and Alex had a fun time driving in first and second gear. Today the road is much more flat and we're averaging 100 km/h. By tonight we should be in Barcaldine or Longreach, which are almost exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn. I'll keep this short because we have a long way to go today.

Fiona

(photo: Fiona Hughes)

We have the trailer...

2009-10-13T04:00:00.001-04:00

and Eleanor is fine! Alex and Andy went to the customs inspection and then spent most of the day re-wiring the trailer lights and replacing the deflating trailer tires. We'll be leaving early tomorrow (Wednesday) and should make it about to Toowoomba by tomorrow night. Our exact route is still undecided. Alex said the Land Cruiser seems to be a little slow when hauling the trailer. If this turns out to be a problem we'll try to exchange it for something more powerful when we get to Darwin.

While waiting for news on the trailer, Chris and I went to Sydney's Night Noodle Market for Thai food.

Fiona

Carnet Inspection Tomorrow

2009-10-11T23:41:00.000-04:00

Our shipping container is scheduled to be inspected by Australian customs at 10:30 am tomorrow. We'll be tagging along for the inspection and will get to see Eleanor for the first time in about a month. If all goes well, we'll be able to take possession of Eleanor and the trailer and will be off to Darwin. Today we picked up our chase vehicle, an eight passenger van, as well as a six passenger Land Cruiser that will haul the trailer and be our scout vehicle. We have a few more items to procure before we can hit the road. One of the trailer tires needs to be replaced and we have to get a ball hitch so the Land Cruiser can tow the trailer.

Last night around sunset we walked around Circular Quay and part of the way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They are really serious about security on the harbour bridge, as you can tell from these pictures....

We were too late to climb up to the top of the pylons, but we still had an excellent view of downtown Sydney:

Since we can't do too much until we get the car through customs, we are going to check out Coogee Beach this afternoon.

Fiona

(photos: Chris Pentacoff)

Sydney!

2009-10-10T21:45:00.003-04:00

It's now 12:30 pm on Sunday in Sydney. We've been in Sydney for about 30 hours and have spent more than $100 each during that time, mostly on food and public transportation. The exchange rate is about $1 USD to $1 AUD.

After arriving yesterday morning at 6:45am and taking the train to a friend's downtown apartment, we went for a walk to the Sydney Royal Gardens. There we had a great view of downtown Sydney, as well as the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We also saw some unusual birds.

We haven't been able to pick up the trailer yet, so we don't know what state Eleanor is in after her voyage from Boston. Due to a customs mix-up, we might not get to see her until Tuesday and will likely be in Sydney until at least Wednesday. Then we'll be heading north to Darwin and should arrive there on Sunday. The rest of the team will fly in on Monday.

Fiona

(photos: Chris Pentacoff)

Panasonic Provides Equipment for WSC

2009-10-10T13:17:00.003-04:00

Our friends at Panasonic just sent us some nice equipment for use during WSC: cameras, camcorders, and SD cards.

Here are some test shots from around the shop:

Thanks to Panasonic.

kelly

Batzer Blog

2009-10-03T11:57:00.003-04:00

Rachel's parents will travel with us in Australia. They have a blog that might be of interest to you.

Assembling MPPTs

2009-10-01T08:43:00.003-04:00

Last night, we partially assembled the newest rev of our maximum power point trackers (MPPTs).

Kai applies solder paste to the surface mount pads.

Robert baked all of the boards, so the surface mount components are done. Next time, we'll solder the through-hole components to finish up.

Update: The MPPTs are assembled.

kelly

Greening MIT

2009-09-26T19:00:00.000-04:00

On September 14, MIT held its annual community fall break in Killian Court. The theme was "Greening MIT," and we were invited to host a table.

Although we couldn't display Eleanor (she's being shipped to Australia!), people were still pretty enthusiastic. Mike and I talked with students about the team and solar car racing, and we picked up quite a few potential recruits. President Hockfield stopped by for a few minutes to inquire about WSC, which was nice.

We've been busy with teaching new members and prepping for the race. Less than a month to go!
kelly