Friday, October 9, 2015

Brief WSC 2015 Update: Friday October 9th

I'm flying out to Darwin on Saturday evening, and will be at Hidden Valley by Monday afternoon. Both Scientific Gems and SolarRacing.org have made full status updates today so I'm only going to make a brief update before flying out:

Hidden Valley opened up for the teams mid-week, and most of the teams have set up their with their cars - 27 out of the 45 teams, at our last count. The following teams are the ones that we can not confirm are in Hidden Valley or nearby:

Antakari: No news from the team at all.

MIT: MIT's car landed in Sydney at least three weeks ago. Comments on that post imply that most of the team will be leaving the weekend of October 10th.

10 Tokai: Tokai picked up their car in Melbourne, and was trucking it up to Darwin. Last we've heard, they had made it to Coober Pedy on October 6th or so.

13 UWS: The team spent four days testing on roads in South Australia, and is now trucking the car up the rest of the way to Darwin. Their spot tracker shows them north of Tenant Creek last night.

16 Stanford: The team has been testing in the middle of the Outback for over two weeks now. As of their last blog post at the start of the week, the team had concluded their 3-day mock race, but was planning more testing on the Stuart Highway. The team has been exceedingly quiet overall.

27 RVCE: To the surprise of nearly everyone I've talked to, the RVCE team has actually shown up at Hidden Valley - abet sans car. Their new blog says that their car is stuck in Australian customs, because the Cartet report (customs paperwork) wasn't included with the shipment. The team says that they expect to receive the car from customs on the 13th, but that sounds... extremely optimistic, having personally dealt with international shipping bureaucracy in the past. It's possible that since WSC is a regular event, Chris Sellwood may have some extra leverage to help the team cut through the red tape.

The team also claimed on their blog: "The team of 16 unconsciously noted that they were on par with teams that have been participating since decades with respect to design..." lolwut

36 Anadolu: At the start of the week, it appeared the team was planning a drive from Adelaide to Darwin, and that's the last we've heard.

47 NIT: The car shipped a while ago, and there haven't been any updates from this team.

51 KIT: Most of the team has arrived from Japan. No word on the car.

80 Beijing: This team continues to be a black hole of information.

24 ITU: The team has been dead silent since unveiling the car around the start of September.

31 ITS: No news from the team in several weeks. SolarRacing.org reports that there are rumors the team has encountered issues in shipping - on the other hand, ScientificGems reports that the team is in Australia, and the car is due on Monday.

38 Persian Gazelle: The University of Tehran's car shipped two weeks ago, and the team indicated that they would be flying out... now-ish.

43 Ardingly: The team's car cleared customs in Sydney a while ago. Team members are still arriving.

45 Lodz: The team has arrived in Darwin but it's not clear if they have picked up their car yet.

75 UNSW: The team spent the past week doing testing on the Stuart Highway, and was nearly all the way up to Darwin last night. We heard through the grapevine that eVe shed a wheel fairing at 100kph or so, but it doesn't sound like there was significant damage.

20 Houston: An advance crew has already picked up the car (in Sydney?) and most of the team departed for Australia yesterday.

34 Liberty Christian: The entire team is on the ground in Australia, although most of them are still working their way to Darwin. If I recall, the car was shipped straight to Darwin, so presumably they still have to clear quarantine/customs.

9 comments:

  1. Nice post again Mostdece, enjoy your trip.

    Re RVCE
    Their blog yesterday mentioned getting the car on the 13th but their last post on fb suggests "a couple of hours until SoleBlaze will rejoin his family". Take your pick, they both seem unlikely!

    I hope they remember what the car looks like when they go to pick it up because they don't seem to have a photo of it.

    Re ITS
    Events move quickly, believe Tony.

    Re MIT
    Their latest blog seems to confirm that they are leaving tomorrow, if it was posted today.


    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ITS: Yeah, in general I trust Tony a lot more than whoever is writing the SolarRacing.org posts.

      Aside: I appreciate the fact that we have a source on the ground now, but a page where the commentary on every single team is "it is so incredible this team made it! We are so proud!" get boring, fast. I want the nitty gritty details!

      Delete
    2. :)

      Hey, steady up, I wrote some of them. We are doing our best from a distance.

      Delete
  2. As I said events move quickly, MIT leaving now.

    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
  3. And now UNSW
    https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.994452290605237&type=3&l=002fbd9b43

    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have a good flight out!

    ReplyDelete