Monday, September 21, 2015

WSC 2015 Updates: Monday Sept 21

The University of Michigan posted a brief overview of the WSC contenders. Scientific Gems made a whole bunch of good posts this week, go and check them out. Zero-to-Darwin, a Japanese website for solar car and eco-car competition coverage, has posted a pre-race report on WSC 2015.

As always, we welcome tips if we've missed anything.

Challenger Class

2: University of Michigan

Michigan is down in Adelaide preparing for the race. They recently showed off their car at a WSC press event, along with Stanford and the University of Adelaide.

Nuon has had a busy week. They've done some sightseeing and had a beach BBQ with Punch, Twente, and Eindhoven. They had some minor hiccups getting Nuna8 out of Australian customs/quarantine but were ultimately able to take possession of the car.

4: Antakari Solar Team

No updates from this team on the car - still unsure if the car has shipped or not. Best wishes to all of them, their friends, and families after the recent earthquake in their home country.

No updates this week; car is assumed to still be in transit.

7: MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team

The team made a blog post about shipping the car out (which happened over a month ago). Their shipping tracker shows their container ship entering the port of Melbourne.

8: Punch Powertrain Solar Team

The team posted a new blog and vlog this week, describing their arrival in Darwin. The car has arrive and is set up in a workspace at Darwin High School, and the team had a beach BBQ with Nuon, Twente, and Eindhoven.

9: Adelaide University Solar Racing Team

This week, the team met up with Stanford and Michigan to show of their cars.

10: Tokai University Solar Car Team

No updates this week.

12: Cambridge University Eco Racing

Cambridge has been doing daily updates on their blog, which is great. Notably, the car has arrived at their shop. They're also welding in new roll bars. While I'm always in favor of safety, deciding that you need to go back and weld in new roll cages at this late of a stage is not exactly confidence inspiring... It's possible that the car is less complete that in appears from the exterior.

13: WSU Solar Car Project

WSU has posted a few team member bios up on their blog.

14: UKZN Solar Car

No major updates this week, assuming the car is still in transit.

15: Team Solaris

The team departed for Australia this weekend. Bochum ran into them at the airport in Dubai.

16: Stanford Solar Car Project

Stanford made a post describing their road testing earlier this summer and their arrival in Australia. They've been spotted hanging out with Michigan and the University of Adelaide.

17: NWU Solar Car

No updates since the car landed in AU last week.

18: EcoPhoton Solar Team

No updates since last week.

21: Solar Team Twente

Twente received their car this past week, and had a beach BBQ with several other teams.

22: Siam Technology College

No updates since shipping the car last week.

23: MegaLux GAMF

MegaLux's car arrived by air freight in Singapore, and will complete the journey to Darwin via ship.

25: Goko High School Solar Car Team

No updates in the past week.

26: Durham University Solar Car

No updates in the past week.

27: RVCE Solar Car Team

The team is still posting sponsor thank-you messages to Facebook, but I have yet to see a photo of the car or any news about shipping. It appears the domain name for their website has been allowed to expire.

30: Team Arrow

Arrow has been posting team bios to their Facebook. They're also doing some road testing and practicing emergency roadside drills with the car.

32: Principia Solar Car

No updates in the past week.

36: Anadolu Solar Team

The team made a quick "29 days to race" post, but otherwise no updates.

46: JU Solar Team

Nothing to report since they shipped the car out.

47: Nagoya Institute of Technology Solar Car Team

No updates in the past week.

51: KIT Solar Car Project

No major updates this week.

77: Blue Sky Solar Racing

Part of the team departed for Australia on Friday. It sounds like the car may already be there.

80: Beijing Institute of Technology

A rendering of Bejing's 2015 Sun Shuttle
(image source)
Still no social media or new about this team. Nigel Stephens pointed out that WSC has updated their team profile page with a rendering of an asymmetric catamaran. A render was all that was available of their car prior to WSC 2013 as well, and the car that showed up to that event appeared exactly as rendered.


82: Kookmin University Solar Car Team

No updates after the car shipped last week.

Cruiser Class

11: Hochschule Bochum SolarCar Projekt

The team posted about traveling from Sydney to Darwin earlier this week. A second wave of team members was traveling to Darwin over the weekend. The team has also published a live GPS tracker of their location.

24: Istanbul Technical University Solar Car Team

No updates - still no word on if the car has shipped.

28: SunSpec

SunSpec posted an interesting teaser on Facebook - it sounds like they're attempting to rebuild in time for the race after the fire last month. Although the 20th has come and gone and they don't seem to have showed anything off, SunSpec commented on their own post: "...thanks to all staff in Admiralty who help us to rush out a new body within such extremely tight schedule." It's good to see a team that's not willing to give up. Best of luck, don't give up, and we hope to see you at WSC!

31: ITS Solar Car Racing Team

The team has posted a behind the scenes video showing some of the steps of constructing the car, as well as an unveiling video. A local new station also posted a video. It looks like they did a fairly extensive test drive while the car was between paint jobs.

33: IVE Solar Car

The team posted a link to a news video about their race effort this year.

35: University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project

The first wave of team members arrived safely in Adelaide. They reported that they were going to pick up their car from the shipping company two days ago, but haven't posted any updates since then. Not sure if that's a bad sign or not?

38: Persian Gazelle Solar Car

(image source)
The team has posted more photos of their new car to their website and instagram. Particularly interesting is this photo showing off the seating position. Definitely tight in the back for the passenger...







40: Solar Team Eindhoven

Eindhoven chilled at a beach BBQ with Nuon, Twente, and Punch. They've posted a new vlog. They've also had a bit of media coverage.

43: Ardingly Solar Car

It's been a busy week for Ardingly. They drove the car around for a little bit, made it into the local news, and are reportedly shipping the car out tomorrow!

45: KGHM Lodz Solar Team

Lodz shipped the car late last week. The also posted a few more news stories to their YouTube page from back when they unveiled the car.

75: UNSW Sunswift

No major updates this week.

88: Kogakuin University Solar Vehicle Project

Kogakuin announced that they will depart for Australia in the middle of next week. They've also been in the news a little.

Adventure Class

6: PI Solar Car

No updates this week.

20: Houston Solar Race Team

It's been a busy week for these folks. They finally shipped the car yesterday.

34: Liberty Christian Solar Car Team

No updates this week - not a big surprise. The car is in transit, and the team isn't due to arrive for two and a half weeks.

42: TAFE SA Solar Spirit

No updates this week.

6 comments:

  1. It looks like the Goko High School team have been fooling us all.

    The car they raced at Suzuka is not the WSC car, they have built another

    http://www.goko.ac.jp/?p=3425

    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmmm. It's a little hard to tell from the google translated text if that's the car they're bringing, but it *does* look like the car in the image that's just been posted to their WSC Team Profile.

      I'm starting to wonder if there are *two* mostly-separate solar car teams at Goko Industrial High School? The Facebook I've found for them only shows photos of the blue & white solar cars, but this post from Suzuka in 2013 shows *two* Goko cars - the Cruiser car they'd race at WSC 2013, and a very slick three-wheeled car. The one pictured on the team profile page and in the article you linked looks like a fairly straight forward 4-wheeled modification of the latter car.

      Delete
  2. Ok.
    As you say it's really difficult to be sure of the Google translation but here's what I think I've found out.

    First, the headline says "it competed at WSC" which I'm pretty sure means that it will compete at WSC

    Second, both cars competed at Suzuka this year with the blue and white car doing best 56 laps in the full 5 hours at about 65km/h. the black car only managed 28 laps in 2h37m but still averaged around 63km/h so it will be fast enough if they can keep it going.

    Third, the team names translate as Wu Port or Kure Port which when searched both lead back to Goko High School so yes, I think that maybe there are two teams at the same school.

    The next task is to find a separate website for this second team. If there is one.

    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess I just assumed it was the same Goko High School team that participated in 2013. However, the name of the WSC 15 entry appears to be the same as the name of that "very slick three-wheeled car." -- Tony (Scientific Gems)

    But I think I'll hold off altering my own team lists until things clarify further, which they eventually must do.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The name of the Goko car in the Cruiser class last year was Kaiton II, and I see indications on the facebook page that the asymmetric car is named Kaiton III.

      As you point out, the "other" Goko's car was already named Musoushin in the past, and Japanese teams seem very fond of using the same name (for example, it's just Tokai Challenger every year)

      Delete
    2. You're right; you can read the name "Kaiton III" on the side of the blue car in some photographs. I've corrected my team profile, and will eventually correct my team chart. I've tried looking more details under its Japanese name (むそうしん), but no luck so far.

      Delete