South Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade

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

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

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

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!

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!

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