We’ve made it! Today we covered about 300 solar kms and this takes our total to over half the race distance driven on solar power alone. Endeavour rolled into Port Augusta this afternoon at 3:30pm to complete her final race driving. We are not allowed to drive solar the final 300km to Adelaide because we arrived in Port Augusta after midday, but we have officially crossed the continent!

We could not be more pleased with how it has gone considering the problems we’ve had. We’ve covered 1600km using solar power alone and reached speeds of 108kph with the first race car CUER has ever built. The work that has gone towards making this possible is vast, it works out at about 1 man hour for every 100 metres! The team here in Australia and at home have put their all into making this possible and even though we did  not reach Adelaide solely under solar power, we are very proud of Endeavour and how far she has taken us.

This afternoon we drove out of the desert and in to the verdant countryside around Adelaide. The difference was incredible, and the return to civilisation certainly raised team morale after the…
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Another day full of ups and downs for CUER, we were obliged to trailer the car in the morning as per yesterday to try and catch up the rest of the pack. We managed to drive about 200 solar kilometres over the middle part of the day but unfortunately further battery problems put paid to this. Even more cells have died and Chao our battery surgeon had to perform an emergency cell bypass seeing as we are now completely out of spares. This is not an easy thing to do at the best of times, never mind in the back of a truck in the Outback!

On a positive note, we did see Leeming High School on the road which means that we have caught up the back of the pack. Although unfortunately we were on the side of the road when they passed by us…

We arrived at Coober Pedy this afternoon having trailered the final part of the day and bumped into Stanford and McMasters at the Control Point. To give some perspective, Stanford have got this far travelling at an average speed of about 40kph without having trailered. McMasters have trailered since Sunday when their car caught…
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Today Endeavour rolled into Alice Springs after four hours of flying along the Stuart Highway at an average speed of 73kph, at times travelling at over 100kph. We have reached the half way point despite our dying battery pack and this is thanks to a caffeine saturated electronics team and the determination of 17 Cambridge students ready to battle on through the Outback whatever it takes.

We may have had to trailer Endeavour in both the morning and evening but we still covered 286 solar kilometres. Endeavour is still very much in the race even if she is some way behind it. With over 1500km under our belt, CUER is ready to face the second half of the race and clock up as many kilometres under the sun as possible. We can still make a good race position regardless of the time or day we arrive in Adelaide and the team are all working flat out to make that happen.

We know that even against all odds; the battery cells are dying off one by one, time is running thin, almost 1500km stretch out ahead of us, but we will make it. Endeavour heads down the Stuart Highway at 8am…
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Today we attempted to make up lost time caused by our troubled batteries. We needed to get through the Tennant Creek Control Stop, after its official 11am close, and then on to Barrow Creek by 5pm.  If not we would find ourselves in a position where we were forced to trailer the car in order to catch up with the pack. CUER’s aim had always been to finish the race on solar power alone so this was not an option that we were willing to take.

The day started well, we set off from Dunmarra at 8:27am after serving our 27 mins of battery time penalty, and then maintained an average speed of 70kph until 11:30am. It then became clear the battery problems that we suffered from yesterday were not resolved and the battery pack was under considerable pressure. Chao, Jonathan and Julian, our ace electronics team, managed to get the car back on the road and nurse it through another few hours driving.

However, despite the determined effort of the electronics team, the problems did not subside and we were obliged to pull off the road again. This did not bode well for our 5pm deadline in Barrow Creek.…
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Day 2 of the Global Green Challenge has certainly had its ups and downs. We find ourselves tonight in the lap of luxury, in a real campsite at Dunmarra. We’ve had big problems today with our battery pack – unfortunately one of the worst parts to go wrong, since we generally can’t even use the array to charge the battery whilst any repairs are done. Time penalties are also imposed for replacing battery cells which we had no choice but to do. Chao, our battery guru, did an absolutely brilliant job of replacing the dead cells firstly, at dawn in the campsite, and then in the back of a broiling truck in the Outback. He succeeded in getting us back on the road and back in the race.

Even with a 2.5 hour stop to replace battery cells and the 36 minutes of time penalty that this involved, we still managed to cover 268km at an average speed of 53kph which is an increase of yesterday’s average of 49kph. This is a very good sign and it is only unfortunate that although the battery pack was functioning exactly as it was designed to do; it suffered from unforeseeable cell death.…
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Day One has turned out to be an event full of eventful eventualities. The start itself was remarkably smooth and well-attended for a Sunday morning. Forty cars lined up gleaming for the last time. Forty teams did something remarkably similar. Small pcokets of national pride prevailed and as each car started off from Parliament Square (to the theme tune from ?)

While Endeavour trundled trustily towards Katherine at around 60kph, the scout vehicle and truck remained behind to do some last minute shopping, which then allowed them to beast it down the Stuart Highway to catch up to the convoy. We were all surprised to see so many solar cars at the side of the road, presumably stopping due to problems, so very early on – we spotted the Eclipse VI team stopped just outside of Darwin. It was a journey almost as exciting as that of Endeavour. We had no idea how far the convoy had travelled and who they had overtaken. For every solar car convoy we overtook, we felt a little bit of glee that Endeavour was ahead of another car. This glee rapidly turned to downright surprise as we passed both Bochum entries – SolarWorld No…
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After a successful day out on the track Endeavour has qualified for the Global Green Challenge 2009!

Only a flat tyre just before our brake test prevented us from getting through in one go, but one quick change later and we were given our start time of 8:15am from State Square, Darwn tomorrow morning. It was a great experience to be out in the pits at the Hidden Valley Raceway in Darwin with all the other teams with some of them looking very competitive indeed around the track. Aurora and Nuon fighting it out for fastest lap time with Aurora beating Nuon’s lap time of 2min 2secs by a significant margin. We were perhaps not the fastest at 3mins 40secs so let us be thankful that it is a stamina race! It was really exciting to see all the teams out on the track and there was a gre at sense of team spirit and sportsmanship, and only…
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A quick report to test out our satellite internet connection. Six hours until qualifying begins!

With the start of the Global Green Challenge just a few days away, this morning marked Endeavour’s first test: scrutineering. Race officials checked over every minute detail of the car, to check that we had complied with all the regulations. Endeavour passed with (mostly) flying colours – great work by the technical team, all those hours pouring over the rule book paid off!

There was excitement during the driver ingress/egress tests. Each of our four drivers had to demonstrate that they could get in and out of the car unassisted in under 15 seconds. Unfortunately, Mike’s bleeding shins were rather obvious proof that the front edge of the cockpit needed some sharp edges removing, but once this had been fixed Endeavour met all the organisers’ requirements. There was some disappointment too, however, when we found out that we were not going to be able to run using Dunlop’s specialised Solarmax tyres. Tests over the last few days have shown us the potential huge improvement in performance that these tyres could give, but it appears that our wheel rims are slightly too large.

It was great to see some of the other cars at the showground today. The Umicore car…
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Hi all! Time for another non-work-related blog post from me.  This one is about the “adventure days” that CUER have had whilst in Darwin.  I personally have had three great days off, though not all in a row, don’t worry.