SVP Race Updates

New Website!

2011-05-03T20:19:44Z

We have built a new website. If you want to read more SVP news, head over to the new blog.

]]> We have built a new website. If you want to read more SVP news, head over to the new blog.

ASC 2010 Day 6 and 7

2010-06-27T13:01:28Z

Spirits were slightly down after we had run out of power the previous afternoon; we no longer knew if we were in 2nd place, or if Bochum was far enough ahead of us to take it from us. On the other hand, we got a very good evening and morning charge, and drove to the stage stop in Normal, IL as fast as the speed limits would allow, arriving before noon. We were 5th into the stage, after Michigan, Stanford, Missouri S&T, and Bochum. We later learned that we were still in 2nd place, approximately 13 minutes ahead of the Germans. We'd gotten 7 minutes of penalties for speeding, but the Germans got 8 minutes of penalties for something, so we weren't complaining.

]]> Spirits were slightly down after we had run out of power the previous afternoon; we no longer knew if we were in 2nd place, or if Bochum was far enough ahead of us to take it from us. On the other hand, we got a very good evening and morning charge, and drove to the stage stop in Normal, IL as fast as the speed limits would allow, arriving before noon. We were 5th into the stage, after Michigan, Stanford, Missouri S&T, and Bochum. We later learned that we were still in 2nd place, approximately 13 minutes ahead of the Germans. We'd gotten 7 minutes of penalties for speeding, but the Germans got 8 minutes of penalties for something, so we weren't complaining.

The Normal, IL stage stop was really well put together. The organizers of the top had seen to it that the campus's billiards and bowling hall was open to all of the teams, and free snowcones were available out at the solar cars. A big thanks to those responsible for the stage stop for keeping us cool and entertained!

We started the 7th and last day of the race with just the barest hold on 2nd place. The last stage was a ~110 mile sprint into Naperville, and it was clear that all of the top cars had the power to drive the whole way at the speed limit. It was going to come down to who was able to hug the speed limit the best without speeding, and who got lucky at the stoplights. We began the day right on Michigan's tail, but very shortly, Bochum and then Stanford got around both of our caravans. Bochum appeared to have timed the stoplights to perfection, and Stanford just seemed hell-bent on crossing the finish line first, regardless of whether they got speeding penalties or not. Their car was like a rocket out of the stoplights.

When Michigan saw that they would not be crossing the finish line first, they very graciously allowed us to pass, ensuring that if our two caravans came up to a changing traffic light, our caravan would be the one that got through while they got caught. This allowed us to try to stick to Bochum as closely as possible.

Although the last stage was one of the shortest race days of the entire trip, it was about 10x as stressful as any other day. Centaraus 2 and our driver Slavo performed flawlessly, and in the end, we managed to maintain our distance from Bochum well enough to take 2nd place overall by 7 minutes and 57 seconds. Michigan took the overall win. We're incredibly proud to have taken home the silver; the trophy wil join our '95, '03, and '05 second place trophys.

We also took home several other awards. At the Normal, IL stage stop, the teams were all polled and we were given a sportsmanship award. At the finish line, the team was given the award for excelence in electrical design, as well as the official's sportsmanship award as party of a three way tie with Calgary and Northwestern. We're pleased to be recognized for all of the hard work that we did to get other teams on the road. The race observers handed out some joke awards afterward; we got a rearview mirror with a picture of Michigan's lead vehicle taped to it, to remind us that we were the first team to the race that got to show Michigan some taillights. It's going to get hung in a place on honor in our shop office.

This was a fantastic end to an amazing two years on the C2 project.

-Adem Rudin

ASC 2010 Day 5

2010-06-25T02:54:37Z

We started the day in 2nd place, an hour and five minutes behind Michigan, and a little over half an hour ahead of Bochum. Bochum apparently had issues on the starting line and was forced to start late, so the gap widened considerably right off the line. A few miles into the race route, our navigator missed a turn, and we ended up behind Calgary and Missouri S&T. Fortunately for us, we were able to quickly get around them... only to get stuck behind a different kind of slow moving, three car caravan. We were held up behind a group of three vintage automobiles, and the race route today was on curvy hills, so we did not have an opportunity to pass for 20 minutes! We later heard from S&T that they had the same issue.

]]> We started the day in 2nd place, an hour and five minutes behind Michigan, and a little over half an hour ahead of Bochum. Bochum apparently had issues on the starting line and was forced to start late, so the gap widened considerably right off the line. A few miles into the race route, our navigator missed a turn, and we ended up behind Calgary and Missouri S&T. Fortunately for us, we were able to quickly get around them... only to get stuck behind a different kind of slow moving, three car caravan. We were held up behind a group of three vintage automobiles, and the race route today was on curvy hills, so we did not have an opportunity to pass for 20 minutes! We later heard from S&T that they had the same issue.

Despite all this, we were somehow able to catch up to Michigan's caravan! I still have not heard official word on the weight of their car (if 713lbs is fully loaded, it's 537lbs empty, but a Michigan team member I talked to said "I'm not sure, but there's no way it's under 600lbs empty", so who knows), but it's clear that Infinium accelerates slower out of stops and goes slower up the long hills than Centaurs 2 does. We would catch them in the twisty parts of the route and then get dropped on the long flats or at stoplights in towns. We ended up pulling into the Alton checkpoint only one minute and eleven seconds behind them; not bad considering that we started a minute behind! Stanford was right on our tail, and S&T pulled in pretty soon after as well. The Taiwanese showed up as well, and Calgary rolled in just as we were leaving. It sounds like Kentucky was hot on their heels.

Upon leaving the checkpoint, we managed to turn the tables on Michigan. At a stoplight, we got the jump on them, and managed to pass them. The Michigan caravan was clearly unhappy with the whole "not being the leader" situation, but due to the congestion in town, were unable to do anything about it. As we left town, it turned out that we were driving faster! At several point, we were actually out of sight of Michigan.

Unfortunately, we were unable to sustain that pace, and had to pull over due to dropping voltages in some battery modules. While on the side of the road, we were passed by both Michigan and Stanford. We drove as fast as we were able for the last two hours of the day, and got a good evening charge in at Chatham.

Even counting some potential penalties for a malfunctioning taillight early in the day, we're still solidly in 2nd place, and expect to be driving at highway speed or close to it for the last two short days of the event. We're very please with the car thus far, and already have ideas for the C3 project cycle.

-Adem Rudin

ASC 2010 Day 3 and 4

2010-06-24T03:38:10Z

The past two days have been pretty smooth sailing. On Tuesday, we left bright and early from the Downtown Ramada in Topeka, KS. Leaving the city, Michigan's caravan, ours, and Bochum's were lined up nearly nose-to-tail in traffic for about 3 miles, which certainly had to be interesting for the morning commuters to gawk at.Once we got out of the city, however, it became apparent that Michigan was outpacing us, and Bochum was falling back.

]]> The past two days have been pretty smooth sailing. On Tuesday, we left bright and early from the Downtown Ramada in Topeka, KS. Leaving the city, Michigan's caravan, ours, and Bochum's were lined up nearly nose-to-tail in traffic for about 3 miles, which certainly had to be interesting for the morning commuters to gawk at.Once we got out of the city, however, it became apparent that Michigan was outpacing us, and Bochum was falling back.

Early in the day, Missouri S&T caught up to us. They would have liked to pass us, but they caught up to us as we were entering a construction zone with no safe place to pull off, and S&T ended up dropping back a little with traffic. A few miles on, we missed a turn. We turned left onto a road, and half a mile later, we were supposed to turn right. Our lead vehicle spotted it too late, and we had to continue straight and find a safe place to turn around. However, S&T came around the left turn and saw us ahead. Their navigator must have assumed that we knew what we were doing, as they followed us the wrong way! S&T got turned around faster than us and got ahead, as while we were both sorting ourselves out, Bochum snuck past both of us.

We ended up pulling into the Jefferson City checkpoint around 2:20pm in 3rd place, behind the Germans. Jefferson City was sweltering, but the Capitol Building was very pretty (and had ice-cold air conditioning). At the end of our two hours at the checkpoint stop, S&T, Stanford, and Kaohsiung had all arrived.

The end of the day did not go so well. The battery instantly hit the temperature limit of the cells, and we limped along for the remaining hour and a half. On the plus side, we found a perfect place to stop and charge. By this point, the team was fed up with temperature issues in the battery. The array was making power, but due to the heat issues, we couldn't put it to the ground. So we made a ram-air intake duct:

When we started the next morning, it became apparent that our work on the duct had paid off; the battery immediately cooled down when we started driving, and stayed about 10 degrees Celsius cooler than it had on previous days. The highest temperature we'v seen since then is around 39C, wheras before we were limping along to keep temps down and still bumping against the 45C limit! The sprint into Rolla on day 4 was over very fast; we arrived in Rolla in 2nd place. Although Michigan had gained time on us, we had gained time on Bochum in 3rd. At this point, we're just trying to hold onto what we have, a 2nd place finish with our cheap array will be a big enough victory in and of itself.

-Adem Rudin

ASC 2010 Day 2

2010-06-22T02:30:15Z

The second day of the race was basically flawless for the UMN team. I don't have time to go into too many details (it's pretty boring, "we drove ~140 miles without stopping" about covers it), but today was basically flawless. We pulled into the Topeka stage stop just before noon, got in our allowed 30 minutes of charging, and relaxed for the rest of driving hours talking to other teams. We got in a good evening charge, and hope to get in a good morning charge as well.

We ended the stage in 2nd place, with 07:48:40 elapsed. We are 00:23:37 behind Michigan, 00:16:41 ahead of Bochum, and 00:47:54 ahead of Calgary. Behind them is Missouri S&T, Stanford, Kaohsiung, SUNY New Paltz, Northwestern, and Kentucky, respectively. Iowa State encountered some major electrical difficulties this stage and had to trailer their car in, and I have not heard anything about UT Austin. Illinois State had to make some mechanical alterations to their car and were unable to drive the first stage, but rumor has it that they will be joining us for the rest of the race.

The second stage of the race starts tomorrow; we drive east to Jefferson City, MO, and then drive southwest through Lake of the Ozarks, where we will turn back northeast to finish at Rolla, MO on the 23rd. The hills on this stage are going to be bad; whenever I ask Missouri S&T about them, they just cackle at me. We'll see how Michigan's 713lb car deals with the hills; Centaurus 2's 389lbs should just sail up and down them.

Go Fast, Go Safe, GO GOPHERS!
-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

]]> The second day of the race was basically flawless for the UMN team. I don't have time to go into too many details (it's pretty boring, "we drove ~140 miles without stopping" about covers it), but today was basically flawless. We pulled into the Topeka stage stop just before noon, got in our allowed 30 minutes of charging, and relaxed for the rest of driving hours talking to other teams. We got in a good evening charge, and hope to get in a good morning charge as well.

Go Fast, Go Safe, GO GOPHERS!
-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010 Day 1

2010-06-21T02:24:31Z

The first day of racing went very well; far better than the disastrous first day that I recall from 2008. As it turns out, when the power trackers work, we can actually drive fast! We spent most of the day at or very near the speed limit.

We departed from the Bass Pro shop in Broken Arrow, OK at 12:02, one minute after Bochum and two minutes after Michigan. About a mile into the race, Bochum pulled into a gas station ahead of us, letting us pull ahead. I have heard that they punctured a tire and had to repair it. We got lucky with some stoplights, and about 20 minutes into the event, pulled up right behind Michigan. We definitely had the power to stick with them, but unfortunately, we were still being plagued by battery heat issues and were forced to reduce current and fall back.

]]> The first day of racing went very well; far better than the disastrous first day that I recall from 2008. As it turns out, when the power trackers work, we can actually drive fast! We spent most of the day at or very near the speed limit.

Bochum caught up and passed us before the Neosho checkpoint, where we pulled in 3rd. Kaohsiung was in 4th, Calgary in 5th, SUNY in 6th, S&T 7th, and Stanford in 8th, approximately an hour behind us. Kentucky and Northwestern made it through the Neosho checkpoint in 9th and 10th, respectively. We have no news on Illinois, Iowa, or Texas Austin. We just got a report via Twitter that Western Michigan encountered issues on the start line and has withdrawn, but we have no idea how reliable the source is.

After the Neosho checkpoint, we passed and were passed by Bochum several times over the last two hours of the day. We are currently stopped for the night in Butler, Missouri; we believe Michigan is 30-40 miles ahead. The team is confident that it has fixed the heat issues once and for all, and we're going to be gunning for the top spot over the next few days.

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010: The Night Before

2010-06-20T04:24:18Z

Today has been fairly uneventful. The team woke up and rolled out of Granbury early, in order to try to stay on a regular schedule. Tulsa was only 6 hours away, so we arrived early in the afternoon. We charged the car off the sun for as long as we could to top off the pack, and then attended a meeting with the race officials to figure out exactly what will be happening tomorrow morning.

We will be at the at the Bass Pro Shop in Broken Arrow, OK starting at 9am tomorrow, and will depart at noon. If all goes well, you can also see us at the Crowder College checkpoint in Neosho, MO sometime between 1:45 and 5:00pm.

Go Fast, Go Safe, GO GOPHERS!
-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

]]> Today has been fairly uneventful. The team woke up and rolled out of Granbury early, in order to try to stay on a regular schedule. Tulsa was only 6 hours away, so we arrived early in the afternoon. We charged the car off the sun for as long as we could to top off the pack, and then attended a meeting with the race officials to figure out exactly what will be happening tomorrow morning.

Go Fast, Go Safe, GO GOPHERS!
-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010: Formula Sun, Day 3

2010-06-19T04:23:29Z

We finished in third place at this year's Formula Sun Grand Prix and American Solar Challenge qualifier! Official results can be found here.

The third and final day of Formula Sun was fairly calm, compared to the psat two days. More clouds in the sky prevented teams from driving as fast as they had in the first two days, and barring major accidents, it was pretty clear that the finishing order was going to be Michigan and Bochum in the first and second places, respectively. All of the teams were just trying to put more laps on our cars to wring out all of the bugs, and get the drivers more comfortable in the cars.

]]> We finished in third place at this year's Formula Sun Grand Prix and American Solar Challenge qualifier! Official results can be found here.

The Texas heat and hard throttle/hard braking racetrack driving has been taking its toll on our battery ventilation system; near the end of every day we've had to slow down to keep our battery from overheating. The last day of racing was the hottest yet, which caused our battery to hit its temperature limit earlier, as well as caused worries about the motor controller temperature. Our old NGM EVC-200 may be one of the oldest active motor controllers in solar car racing, and as it's the only one we have left, we don't want to damage it. In light of this, with one hour of racing left in the day, we pulled off to swap for Sam's custom "Uber Controller", which performed admirably on the track. The team is very proud to say that we have the ability to drive with our own custom motor controller.

We were initially concerned that Calgary might make a run for our third place spot, but they only drove about 11 laps today. As it turns out, while their wheels are prefectly fine for straight-line highway driving, they can't handle the racetrack cornering loads of their heavy car. They destroyed one wheel, and two more are no longer safe to drive with. In light of this, they elected to save their remaining wheels for the highway, leaving us to take third place in the 2010 FSGP relatively unchallenged.

Northwestern, Kaohsiung, New Paltz, Illinois State, and Texas Austin were all out on the track for basically the entire day turning laps, with Missouri S&T, Stanford, and Western Michigan making it out for a while as well. In fact, only two teams did not drive at all today: Iowa and Kentucky.

Iowa was having major issues with their battery protection and primary power bus; Sam was camped out in their pit basically all day getting them set for the road race. Fortunately, they had gotten qualified the previous day, so this wasn't as large a setback as it could have been.

Kentucky sheered off one of their aluminum axles on the track yesterday. Despite their best efforts to get steel replacent ones machined in time to get on the track today, the replacent parts showed up about an hour too late for them to be able to get on the track today. Kentucky did not drive enough laps to qualify for ASC. Western Michigan also failed ot drive enough laps, and we haven't heard anything from them or the officials about what's going to happen with these two teams.

Unfortunately, Oregon State will not be driving the road race with us. Despite the best efforts of almost oll of the teams in attendence, a combination of mechanical and electrical issues proved to be impossible to overcome. Our hearts go out to them, and we wish them the best of luck next year.

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010: Qualifying, Day 1 and 2

2010-06-18T05:45:38Z

Apologies for the lack of updates on this blog, I've been running around all over the place for the past two days. Make sure to follow our Twitter for frequent (but short) updates.

The past two days have been extremely exciting. Our Formula Sun Grand Grix started off rather poorly.

]]> Apologies for the lack of updates on this blog, I've been running around all over the place for the past two days. Make sure to follow our Twitter for frequent (but short) updates.

The past two days have been extremely exciting. Our Formula Sun Grand Grix started off rather poorly. On the morning of the race start, we noticed some oddities in our battery pack readings. Upon opening the pack, we noticed a battery cell was bulging rather severely. We were able to remove the cell and contain it without incident, and successfully welded a new cell into the pack while under the scrutiny of the inspectors. However, we missed the first 87 minutes of driving in the process. Once we got out on the track, however, our drivers reported that Centaurus 2 drove like a dream; far better than C1 did according to those of them who are familiar with the 2008 vehicle.

There was a heart-stopping moment early in the day, when our driver Slavo got to experience what happens when the rear tire blows in the middle of a turn. The car spun 180 degrees around before stopping. Slavo was unharmed; he hopped right out and pushed the car off the track to safety as we drove a tire change crew around to his location with a track official. Although I never hoped to empirically test it, the incident was proof that our math was correct, the car will slide sideways instead of rolling over.

Aside from the spin, our first day was fairly uneventful. We turned laps at a steady, even pace for the most part, stopping for approximately 45 minutes at one point due to heat concerns. We also allowed our driver Alex Tran to attempt a few "hot laps" at the end of the day, to push the limits of the car and see what it could do. I'm proud to say that Alex beat my 2008 lap record of two minutes and fourteen seconds by a single second, setting what I believe to be the new solar car lap record for the track at 2:13.

At the end of the day, we had driven 105 laps, 5 laps more than we needed to qualify for ASC 2010. Jon, Slavo, and Gareth had all done more than the 25 minimum laps needed to qualify as a driver, and Alex only needed a few more. We finished the day in 4th place, behind Michigan, Bochum, and Calgary. No other teams behind us had yet completed their qualification laps, however. We'd spend more than two and a half hours off the track due to unforeseen issues, so we knew that we could do better.

There were several things we noticed on the car that could be improved, so we made some modification to the fairings, taillights, and battery ventilation system overnight.

This morning, no issues cropped up to prevent us from taking our place on the starting grid. As soon as we started driving, it became apparent that we were one of the fastest cars on the track today, if not the fastest. Over the course of the day, we matched Michigan lap for lap, and drove significantly faster than both Bochum and Calgary. Our day was essentially flawless until the last 15 minutes, when climbing temperatures forced us to pull of the track early. If it had not been for this, we would have been neck and neck with Michigan for the day.

At the end of the 2nd day, we are in third place, 47.6 miles behind Bochum, and 28.9 miles ahead of Calgary. Of the 14 cars still in the event, Illinois State, UT Austin, Kentucky, and Oregon State have not yet qualified for the American Solar Challenge. Illinois and Austin are on pace to qualify tomorrow. Oregon has not yet made it onto the track, but has high hopes for tomorrow. Kentucky is the real heartbreak story; they sheered a front axle late in the day and are currently getting a spare machined. Hopefully they'll still manage to get into the main event.

We have high hopes for the last day of qualifying. If all goes well, we may be able to sneak into 2nd place! The start of the 2010 American Solar Challenge is almost here.

The starting line for the main event is located at 101 Bass Pro Drive, Broken Arrow, OK 74012. We'll be departing the starting line at noon. If you want more details about where to see us along the race route, you can find it in this PDF

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010 Scrutineering: Day 4

2010-06-16T04:34:16Z

Today was the final day of scrutineering. As we've been done since midway through yesterday, there's not much to report on our front. We've mostly been going through final preparations for the Formula Sun Gran Prix, the three day track event that starts tomorrow. The track event serves as a qualifier for the main road race, as well as being a final test of the cars abilities before they are set loose on the highway.

On the other hand, we've been keeping busy helping other teams.

]]> Today was the final day of scrutineering. As we've been done since midway through yesterday, there's not much to report on our front. We've mostly been going through final preparations for the Formula Sun Gran Prix, the three day track event that starts tomorrow. The track event serves as a qualifier for the main road race, as well as being a final test of the cars abilities before they are set loose on the highway.

On the other hand, we've been keeping busy helping other teams. Through sheer force of will, Sam and the rest of our electrical team, the Germans, and a few other people have managed to get Kaohsiung's electrical system up to speed with the ASC safety rules, and our mechanical guys have managed to build a proper should harness mount for them. We believe that the team from Taiwan will be able to get out on the road with the rest of us.

Jessica, Alex, and Jon spent most of their day working to get Oregon State through mechanical inspection, as well as driver egress. Unfortunately, when they got up to dynamic testing, they suffered a catastrophic failure of welds in both of their titanium uprights. They are attempting to repair both of them, but they're going to miss the first day of Formula Sun, at the very least.

When all is said and done, 10 cars will be on the starting line tomorrow at 9am, out of the 15 cars down here in Cresson. We wish the best of luck to all of our competitors!

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010: Scrutineering, Day 3

2010-06-15T04:53:26Z

Today, the team completed scrutineering! The inspectors ok'd our caravan safety procedures, so we are all set for the race. We also believe that we were the first team to go entirely green, although Calgary may have finished up their electrical or battery inspection basically simultaneously...

]]> Today, the team completed scrutineering! The inspectors ok'd our caravan safety procedures, so we are all set for the race. We also believe that we were the first team to go entirely green, although Calgary may have finished up their electrical or battery inspection basically simultaneously...

At the end of the day, Bochum, Calgary, Michigan, and ourselves are all ready to go. It sounds like Missouri S&T, Northwestern, Stanford, SUNY New Paltz, and UT Austin are all extremely close to qualifying as well, and Kentucky and Iowa will get through with little trouble tomorrow as well.

tomorrow is the last day of inspection, and we really want to see all of the teams get through inspection. We've all been doing our best to help Kaohsiung get qualified. As far as I can tell, their battery protection now consists of our control board coupled to their original current sense system, the German's temperature sense system, and some stuff from Iowa. Alex, Sam, and Jon have been working with the mech inspectors to get their fasteners and seat belt mounting approved. We're going to do our best to help out Oregon State and Illinois State as well tomorrow. Unfortunately, it appears that New Mexico may have withdrawn from the event; their array was badly damaged in transit and we have not seen them at all today.

We plan to finish testing our array tomorrow and generally finish prep on the caravan vehicle. Hopefully the weather will hold!

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010, Scrutineering day 2

2010-06-14T05:27:31Z

We started the day with a red in mechanical and a yellow for battery protection. The inspectors quickly ok'd our battery protection in the morning, but mechanical required us to disassemble the entire front suspension to replace some nuts with ones driller for safety wire. We'd like to thank Iowa for the use of their drill press, and the mechanical inspectors for staying late to check out the new fasteners.

All we need to do now is pass caravan inspection and we're all set to go.

]]> We started the day with a red in mechanical and a yellow for battery protection. The inspectors quickly ok'd our battery protection in the morning, but mechanical required us to disassemble the entire front suspension to replace some nuts with ones driller for safety wire. We'd like to thank Iowa for the use of their drill press, and the mechanical inspectors for staying late to check out the new fasteners.

All we need to do now is pass caravan inspection and we're all set to go.

One great thing about these events is how even through we're all competing with each other, the teams still are willing to lend a helping hand to teams that need it. The team from Taiwan has been having issues with their car, and I've seen members from our team, Calgary, and even the German team popping into their garage space to help out. We've repaid Iowa's generosity with their drill press by helping them with their motor controller, and members from both our team and Calgary have been helping Kentucky with their motor bearings.

At the moment, Calgary, Bochum, Michigan, and Minnesota are a very close to being "all green" on the inspectors list.

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

ASC 2010 Scrutineering: Day 1

2010-06-13T03:49:10Z

After a long night spent preparing the car, the team woke up bright and early to bring the inspection process.

]]> After a long night spent preparing the car, the team woke up bright and early to bring the inspection process.

The first step was the 8:00am team meeting, where we were given a schedule for the week.

We saw a lot of familiar faces among the inspectors. We'd like to thank all of them for putting in all of the time and effort to organize the event.

Our first inspection stop was body and sizing, as well as driver inspection. We blazed through the horn, lights, driver visibility, and rear-view without any issues.

The inspectors check driver eye height

Alex Tran leaps out of the car in the egress test.

After driver inspection, we cycled through the electrical, array, battery protection system, and mechanical stations. Although we are all-green in electrical and array, unfortunately, we were not able to match our single-day inspection record from 2008 and 2009. We need to add temperature sensing to the secondary pack to pass battery protection, and there are several issues with fasteners that we need to fix to pass mechanical.

We expect to pass both mechanical and BPS tomorrow morning, and hopefully pass through dynamic testing as well.

Wish us luck;

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

Off To The Races

2010-06-11T03:32:36Z

The team departed the shop early this morning, made good time through five states to end in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we have set up camp in the backyard of Alan's aunt and uncle's house.

Tomorrow will be a much easier day, as the finial drive down to Cresson is only about 6 hours long, and we aren't allowed to set up camp at the track until 6pm.

There's some work that needs to be finished on the car (notably, front fairings), but we expect to finish this up tomorrow morning and evening.

Keep an eye on our Twitter, as that will be updated very regularly.

Wish us luck on the race!

-Adem Rudin
Senior Crew Chief

]]> The team departed the shop early this morning, made good time through five states to end in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we have set up camp in the backyard of Alan's aunt and uncle's house.

Tomorrow will be a much easier day, as the finial drive down to Cresson is only about 6 hours long, and we aren't allowed to set up camp at the track until 6pm.

There's some work that needs to be finished on the car (notably, front fairings), but we expect to finish this up tomorrow morning and evening.

Keep an eye on our Twitter, as that will be updated very regularly.

Back Home Again

2009-06-07T00:39:18Z

The race crew returned to the shop this evening, exhausted but still excited about our victory. Most of our team had never raced a solar car before, and seeing Centaurus perform has fired them up even more about the project.

A big thank you to all of the teams who showed up, the spirit, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship that every displayed was amazing.

Keep an eye on our website in the coming months for updates and news about our next car!

-Adem Rudin
Crew Chief

]]> The race crew returned to the shop this evening, exhausted but still excited about our victory. Most of our team had never raced a solar car before, and seeing Centaurus perform has fired them up even more about the project.

A big thank you to all of the teams who showed up, the spirit, enthusiasm, and sportsmanship that every displayed was amazing.

Keep an eye on our website in the coming months for updates and news about our next car!

-Adem Rudin
Crew Chief