Chopper is at Hidden Valley!!

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)

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)

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

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.

‎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!

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!

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.