Site Navigation
|
Audio
Photos
Resources
|
July 21, 2005
 |
| The University of Minnesota Solar car weighs about 400 pounds and will hit speeds of 60 mph. (MPR Photo/Dan Gunderson) |
Fargo, ND — The U-of M car, Borealis III, is essentially a thin wedge covered with solar cells. There's a small glass bubble in the middle just large enough for the drivers head.
As soon as the car pulls into the official checkpoint crew members lift off the solar panel so the driver can crawl out.
Zachary Kahler drove the morning leg from Ortonville to Fargo.
"The position in the car is basically flat on my back, there's a little panel that holds my shoulders up and i've got a headrest to keep my head up. Otherwise I'm completely prone," explains Kahler. "And driving down the road, when it gets sunny and hot it gets sunny and hot in the car."
It also takes a great deal of concentration to drive the car down the highway at 55 miles an hour with a steering wheel the size of a bagel.
The University of Minnesota team arrived in Fargo with a half hour lead over MIT, it's nearest rival in the race.
The checkpoint is a mandatory half hour stop. The U-of-M team changes tires, charges the batteries and squeezes a new driver into the cockpit for the next leg of the race.
Borealis III Mechanical Crew Chief Carl Bienert is happy to be in the lead.
"We've got wonderful sun, wonderful weather and the car is performing wonderfully," says Bienert.
When the weather is sunny, the cars run 55 mph on the highway and hope nothing breaks, according to Bienert.
"We build it so it shouldn't break down, but things happen. You could hit a pothole, there's a lot of variables when you're driving on the highway, especially two lane highways like we have been. You can't anticipate everything, you just need to be prepared for anything to go wrong and be ready to fix it," says Bienert.
Some teams lost time when they encountered thunderstorms while crossing Kansas and South Dakota. One team had to cover it's solar cells with sleeping bags when the car was caught in a hailstorm.
Race strategy can play a critical role if the weather turns bad and there's not enough sunshine to keep the batteries fully charged. "You have to take into consideration how fast you want to go to make sure you can make it to the next checkpoint or you can make it to where there's sunshine. You have to make sure you don't make any wrong turns. That's probably one of the biggest ones. Navigation is extremely important, because that's time wasted," says Carl Bienert. "Basically you need to make sure your car performs and you never stop driving." Months of design and testing must happen before the solar cars are ready to race.
North Dakota State University solar team advisor Wayne Reitz knows all about the challenge of just getting a car to the starting line. Mechanical problems kept the NDSU car out of this years race. Reitz says there's a reason the solar challenge is held every two years.
"Because it takes about two years to put a car together. You have a lot of fundraising. High end cars cost anywhere from one to five million dollars, the low end car is $100,000 to $200,000," says Reitz.
It's not likely there will be a solar car in your driveway any time soon. Wayne Reitz says these race cars generate about as much electricity as it takes to run a hair dryer. But he says what the student designers and engineers are learning may help shape alternative fuel vehicles of the future.
The North American Solar Challenge ends on July 27th in Calgary, Alberta.
|
|