Challenger Class
2: University of Michigan
We heard some rumors early in the week, and they turned out to be correct: Aurum's battery is detained in Hawaii for some unspecified reason. We're reminded of MIT's similar issue from four years ago, but it shouldn't be as much of a disaster for Michigan - they have oodles more time than MIT did. It sounds like the team is already back in business! They've started their mock race, which entails driving the race route backwards - from Adelaide to Darwin.
4: Antakari Solar Team
There has been no news from the team since we started doing weekly updates on Sept 21st. Their little blurb on the Bridgestone WSC page shows a photo of the old car, and only a rendering of Intikallpa IV.
This is a team that I am definitely worried about.
This is a team that I am definitely worried about.
7: MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team
MIT's car arrived in Sydney over a week ago. No major news from the team since then, but the team wants to go fast.
8: Punch Powertrain Solar Team
Punch is hanging out in Darwin, grilling with Bochum. They posted some nice photos to Flickr earlier this week.
9: Adelaide University Solar Racing Team
As far as I can tell, the team hasn't made any updates this week
10: Tokai University Solar Car Team
No updates about Tokai this week.
12: Cambridge University Eco Racing
CUER has put together a fantastic social media page, complete with a cute little annotated map. They're also making daily blog updates. The team has spent most of this week traveling north across the outback towards Darwin. In related news, Nigel Stephens published a guest post over on Scientific Gems with some interesting perspectives on the car.
The first members of UKNZ's team have arrived in Adelaide. They will drive the race route in reverse up to Darwin, where they will meet up with their solar car. The team also has a brand new YouTube channel.
15: Team Solaris
16: Stanford Solar Car Project
Stanford posted two new updates to their blog this week (1, 2), as well as a bunch of photos to Facebook. It looks like the team is testing the car pretty heavily. They also posted a nice little video of them Arctan in California earlier this summer.
17: NWU Solar Car
No updates on the status of the team or the car, but they've been actively posting promotional infographics to Facebook. I particularly like the one comparing the weight of their car to a family of kangaroos.
18: EcoPhoton Solar Team
The team posted a new picture of the car to Facebook a few days ago. They shipped the car about three weeks ago, so maybe the car is in Australia? Or is it an old picture? The team has their work cut out for them once the car arrives, as I don't think it had the array installed by the time it shipped.
21: Solar Team Twente
Twente has been outfitting their strategy vehicle (always good for the strategy people to have wood to knock on) and preparing the car. They've posted a bunch of photos to Flickr and their blog. They also made a post about the design of Red One (they say that as far as they know, they are the only asymmetric catamaran with three fairings instead of two, but they must not have looked at the field very closely - NWU, Durham, and Beijing all share that design feature as well). We briefly discussed their post in the comments.
22: Siam Technology College
No news on the car since it shipped out on September 12th. The week, the team received personal blessings from the Supreme Patriarch of Thailand.
23: MegaLux GAMF
The car landed in Singapore last week, and is being shipped by ocean for the last leg. The team will soon depart for Australia themselves.
25: Goko High School Solar Car Team
Since this team does not have any social media or website, no updates :(
26: Durham University Solar Car
The ship with Durham's car was near Taiwan at the start of the week. The first team members have departed for Darwin.
27: RVCE Solar Car Team
The team is still posting thank-you messages to sponsors on Facebook... but otherwise has not made any updates on the car. Their section on the Bridgestone WSC page only has a photo of the team, not the car. The website is still dark.
This is a team that I am definitely worried about.
This is a team that I am definitely worried about.
30: Team Arrow
32: Principia Solar Car
Principia posted on Tuesday that most of the team will be departing on October 9th, but two members will be leaving within the week to meet Ra9 in Australia. That certainly won't leave the team with much time to get acclimated and re-acquainted with the car; inspection starts on the 13th...
36: Anadolu Solar Team
The Anadolu team noted in these comments on Facebook that the team should be arriving in Australia this week.
46: JU Solar Team
47: Nagoya Institute of Technology Solar Car Team
If I understand this post correctly, the team has been training a new driver with a solar car borrowed from another Japanese team. They can't use their own car, because it shipped quite a while ago.
51: KIT Solar Car Project
77: Blue Sky Solar Racing
80: Beijing Institute of Technology
82: Kookmin University Solar Car Team
No updates since the car shipped two weeks ago.
Cruiser Class
We made a big post on the 2015 Cruiser cars this week, check it out!
11: Hochschule Bochum SolarCar Projekt
It's been a busy week for Bochum. They've showed off their world class kitchen team (seriously, they always have had the best food. Way too good for a solar car team), got SunRiser professionally aligned, reassembled their battery, and just started test driving in Australia. They've also made a blog post about their first week in Australia.
The team has built this awesome strategy workstation in one of their support vans. Note, like Twente, that wood is close to hand for knocking on.
Random thought: I wonder if they intentionally cut the parting line for the rear hatch so that it looks like a Porsche 914 when the hatch is removed? I can't unsee it.
The team has built this awesome strategy workstation in one of their support vans. Note, like Twente, that wood is close to hand for knocking on.
Random thought: I wonder if they intentionally cut the parting line for the rear hatch so that it looks like a Porsche 914 when the hatch is removed? I can't unsee it.
SunSpec posted a very short video of the car driving to Instagram this week. I'm not sure if this is a *new* video, or if it's form the same set of videos and pictures they posted to Facebook in August.
31: ITS Solar Car Racing Team
I can't find any updates from this week.
33: IVE Solar Car
35: University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project
The team finally took possession of their car Eos this week, five days after they initially said they were going to pick it up. No idea what happened there, but at least they have the car.
38: Persian Gazelle Solar Car
After years of social media silence, this team is posting new pictures of the car every day - I think they're really proud of their work! The car shipped in the middle of last week, and the team posted some photos to Instagram that appear to show the car doing high speed testing on a race track.
40: Solar Team Eindhoven
Eindhoven posted a big english language update to their website. They're also testing to see who will get to drive the car during qualification.
43: Ardingly Solar Car
This high school team packed up and shipped their Lotus 7 based car in the middle of last week. I completely did not expect these folks to finish the car, given what it looked like when I started this blog three week ago. Congratulation to the team! Check out this post about the team and their car, and the team's launch video. Nigel Stephen also made a guest post on Scientific Gems about this team and their car.
45: KGHM Lodz Solar Team
No major updates since shipping the car a little over a week ago.
75: UNSW Sunswift
88: Kogakuin University Solar Vehicle Project
It's been a busy week for Kogakuin. They have a group that has arrived in Adelaide after some issues with their flights - it sounds like they initially had some trouble with their rental cars too, although I think that's been sorted out. In these comments the team says there is a second group heading directly to Darwin to pick up the car. Kogakuin's car Owl is also heavily featured in the second half of this WSC introduction video from Bridgestone.
The team also made a post about their double bubble roof (was this in response to little ol' me?). They seem to be confident that it's a net advantage, but I'm a little curious what level of detail they went to in their solar simulation. I'm sure it's a clear win if you just look at it from a solar insolation standpoint, but did they simulate the losses in the boost converters for all of those small modules?
Adventure Class
6: PI Solar Car
Withdrawn. This was their first race outside of their home country; the team says they underestimated the amount of planning required for finances and logistics, and they missed critical shipping deadlines. We wish them the best of luck in the future.
20: Houston Solar Race Team
34: Liberty Christian Solar Car Team
No updates this week; the car is due in about a week and a half.
42: TAFE SA Solar Spirit
No updates this week.
.JPG){kind=link}
Great post, as usual!
ReplyDeleteMIT reports their car is in Sydney
UKZN are on the ground in Adelaide
Whoops, I should have had that update from MIT *last* week! And that's the facebook post from UKZN that I linked to; I just captioned it wrong... Thanks!
DeleteThe only clue I can see on the Sunspec videos is that on the latest video there is a series of white marks (tape?) along the roof line which is not present in the August video. Not conclusive I know but they have said that they made a new body.
ReplyDeleteNigel